Because There Is Not Enough Shermione People
by ThisIsB
Summary: An impossible case, an unfathomable threat, but what's most puzzling to Sherlock is the woman who now accompanies him everywhere. For her part, Hermione Granger is a professional. Though with Sherlock, it does take extra effort to keep it that way. Updated weeklyish. Unbetaed. All mistakes are Obama's fault.
1. Chapter 1

The Prime Minister slumped heavily into his chair. Now that the becloaked man was gone, he no longer had to pretend that all of this was just normal, that of course it made sense for a man to come spinning out of the Prime Minister's fireplace in a haze of green fire, spew a lot of information that was impossible to follow, and then disappear into the flames again. The Prime MInister no longer had to act unaffected in the presence of magic. He could drop the polite mask of the politician, thunk his head on the desk, and moan.

That was the proper way to react to a conversation with a wizard.

The Prime Minister had learned of the existence of wizards and witches his second day in office. His secretary had just closed the door, leaving him with his afternoon tea, when green flames suddenly burst to life in his fireplace. Leaping to his feet, the Prime Minister sloshed half off the cup of tea down his front just as a regal-looking gentleman emerged from the flames.

He introduced himself as Kingsley Shacklebolt, the Minister of Magic, because, you see, magic was real, as were wizards and witches, something known by only a few muggles (a word that sounded rather rude to the Prime MInister). Shacklebolt had stayed quite a while, after first using his wand as some sort of reverse vacuum to suck all the hot tea out of the Prime Minister's clothes, leaving them pressed and clean. The Prime Minister was allowed to ask any question he wanted, and the wizard responded readily. Yet every answer seemed to leave his head even more muddled than before. Kingsley had smiled gently and said, "Don't worry. With any luck, you'll never hear from me again."

Apparently, the Prime Minister was not in possession of such luck.

This time, the Minister of Magic had been deadly serious. There was no room for befuddlement: Kingsley had asked the Prime Minister to repeat back what he had said so he knew the muggle understood. There was no allowing for questions this time, either. As soon as the wizard was satisfied that the Prime Minister understood the gravity of the situation, he had merely nodded once and said, "I shall be in touch," before once again disappearing into the bright green flames.

The Prime Minister took seven deep breaths. He laid his hands on the table, which made it easier to pretend they were not trembling. He cancelled all his afternoon appointments.

There was only one thing that he could think to do, a phone call to only one person equipped to shoulder the information the wizard had just shared.

His fingers shook so badly it took three times for him to dial the correct number. It rang far too many times. The growing nausea in the Prime Minister's belly only began to abate when, at last, the man in question picked up—

"Mycroft Holmes."

* * *

><p>It was not surprising to John Watson, when he pushed open the door to 221b Baker Street, to find his friend Sherlock Holmes on the couch, eyes closed, hands steepled under his chin. It was well-known to all members of their circle that this was the pose Sherlock assumed when deep in thought, moving through the halls of his mind palace, searching for the stored information that would let him crack the case.<p>

What was surprising was that this was the exact pose (and clothes) Sherlock had been in when John left. Two days ago.

"Sherlock!" John shouted.

There was no movement.

If they were on a case, that would be one thing, but John knew Sherlock wasn't. Their last one had wrapped up two days ago, rather anticlimactically. A Moriarty copycat had hacked into all the media channels, sparking panic among the Scotland Yard and a reprieve for Sherlock, about to be exiled. Sherlock had been rattling off his plan (one of the members of his homeless network, Bill Wiggins would hack into the TOR network to find an IP address, as Sherlock and John searched out any loose ends from his mission to destroy Moriarty's criminal network) when the call came from Detective Inspector Lestrade. The suspect had been apprehended. Walked into to New Scotland Yard of his own volition and confessed everything. Every aspect of his confession corroborated with the evidence. It was him. And that was that.

Sherlock had been quiet on the ride home from NSY. John asked about Sherlock's thoughts on the case, his feelings regarding its conclusion, even his dinner preferences, but all his questions went unheeded. Upon arrival at Sherlock's flat (formerly Sherlock and John's flat), the famous detective plunked himself on his couch and assumed the pose that, from the looks of it, he'd been in ever since.

"Sherlock!" John tried again.

Nothing.

Huffing loudly, John clumped into the kitchen and set about making tea.

Three days ago, John had moved the last of his things out of the flat. That was all it took for the kitchen to become a disaster area. Sherlock's experiments were an invasive species, infiltrating any space that became available until specimens and cultures and actual dead body parts infected any horizontal surface. Where John had kept the tea he found a tray of test tubes, each holding liquids of various greenness. Jars of crystallized chemicals were where the sugar used to be (what the hell, was that nitrogen triiodine? John warily used a pipette to push it further back into the cupboard). John smirked at the sheet of granite that had been laid over the gas stove burners, on top of which there was a set up of six Bunsen burners. Sherlock undoubtedly would point to the necessity of having two additional heat sources. John thought it more likely that Sherlock didn't know how to turn on the stove.

Sighing, John shoved a bunch of petri dishes aside on the kitchen table and thumped open the bag of provisions his wife Mary had made him pack. When it came to his best friend of six years, whom his wife had only known for eight months, she had been right. Again.

After scrubbing out the electric kettle and rinsing it several times (it looked miraculously ok, if a bit dusty), John set the water to boil. He turned around to find himself nose to nose with Sherlock Holmes.

Lean and pale, with an angular face and fierce blue-green eyes, Sherlock Holmes could be considered sort of hot, the way you might find a vampire sort of hot just before it attacked your neck and sucked your blood and left you ravaged and trembling and exposed. He wore bespoke suits over impeccably tailored dress shirts, though at the moment the jacket was replaced with a silk dressing gown.

"Christ, Sherlock!" John said, jumping back, banging against the counter, and nearly knocking two empty beakers to the floor.

Sherlock gazed at John with increasingly narrowed eyes. His works were pointed and as fast as thought:

"You are John Hamish Watson. Your birthdate is March 31, 1959. You trained at St. Batholomew's Hospital as an army doctor, served as Captain with the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers. From 2007 to 2010 you were stationed in Afghanistan, where you were shot in the shoulder, inevitably leading to you invalided home."

John blinked. "Yeah. I know all that Sherlock. I know _you_ know all that. Jesus, when's the last time you slept?"

Sherlock ignored the question. "You have a blog, wherein you regularly demonstrate your appalling sense of grammar in detailing the cases I have solved—"

"And not solved."

"—Which for reasons only the internet can explain is strangely popular and as of eight days ago had 1,275,734 visits. You have a bewildering capability to attract women to you-"

"Wait, bewildering?"

"—Which has led to a series of atrocious girlfriends, each more insipid than the last, until you somehow managed to seduce a woman of great intellect and courage—"

"I am so telling Mary you said that."

"—Who yet has not incidentally made a series of questionable choices in life, perhaps the most inexplicable of which was choosing you to be a lifelong mate."

John blinked. "Are you kidding me? That's what's most inexplicable? She shot you!"

"And had a perfectly sound reason for doing so."

"Well she had a perfectly sound reason for marrying me!"

Sherlock arched an eyebrow.

"She loves me!"

Sherlock was unimpressed. "Right. _Love_." He said the l-word the way another person might say "pus-filled boil."

His intonation might have made any other person disbelieving, or raging, or some combination of the two. And indeed, within his first few days of Sherlock's acquaintance, John would have reacted this way. But he'd now known the man six years. He'd seen the actions that belied the words.

Snorting, John said,. "You can't fool us anymore, Sherlock." He poked his friend in the chest. "You saved all our lives too many times for us to still believe that you don't care."

Sherlock's chin pushed up. "Caring is not an advantage," he grumbled.

"Yeah, we've all heard Mycroft say that a thousand times," John said, picking up the tea tray and carrying it out to the sitting room. "Sometimes, I don't know which of you is the bigger idiot." He plunked down into his chair and looked up to find Sherlock staring at him, mouth parted in horror.

"Did you just call me an idiot?" he said.

"No," John said, taking a sip of his tea. "I called both you and Mycroft idiots."

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. He crossed his arms, glared down at John in his chair. John remained uncowed. If anything, he looked amused. Gritting his teeth, Sherlock sucked in a breath, then said rapid-fire:

"From the trace scent on your jacket, you went to the florist yesterday, inevitably to buy flowers for your wife, roses, the most romantic of flowers, interesting because you are the one who has just forgiven her, not the other way around-ah. She won't yet have intercourse with you. You have returned to your shared home, but now she resents that it took you so long (she has a point) hence the lack of marital relations which did _not _commence last night, despite your attempts at seduction. In fact, from the crick in your neck and the bags under your eyes, she made you sleep on the couch, so yes, I see exactly what you mean, she loooves you."

John was on his feet, fists balled at his sides, jaw clenched so tightly the ache had spread around his skull.

"You going to punch me now?" Sherlock said sardonically.

Nostrils flared, John took in slow, shaky breaths. "Do you want me to?"

Something flickered in Sherlock's eyes. He blinked. "Don't be ridiculous."

John's eyes widened as Sherlock spun away, crossing back to the couch. "You _do_ want me to punch you. What the hell—what is wrong with you?"

Sherlock resumed his thinking position, steepled fingers under chin, lips pursed imperiously. "Don't be stupid, John, nothing is wrong with me." He closed his eyes.

John stormed over toward him. "Don't you dare, don't you dare disappear into your mind palace. First you tell me what I already know you know about me and then what you have no goddamned business to know. You're wearing the same clothes as when I last saw you two days ago, you haven't eaten or slept—it's like you're on a case, but the case was solved three days ago, they arrested the fake Moriarty, it was all just some stupid hoax."

Even with John waving his arms about, Sherlock was unresponsive. He sat in repose, though there was no question of him falling asleep. He radiated with some fierce intensity, a desire so strong and focused it would not cease until what was wanted was found.

"Sherlock! _Sherlock_! Goddamn—fine. Do it your way." John stomped toward the door. "But I'm leaving."

He wrenched the door open, about to slam it behind him, when-

"It's gone." Sherlock's voice was quiet.

John paused. He stuck his head back through the doorway. Sherlock's eyes were open, though staring straight ahead. His expression had dropped, like a public mask removed. If John didn't know better, he would have said that Sherlock looked… lost.

"What's gone?" John asked.

"From my mind palace." A crease appeared between Sherlock's eyebrows.

"Something's gone… from your mind palace?"

"Mm." The crease deepened.

John stepped back into the room. "What is it that's gone?"

Sherlock snapped his eyes to John. "Well obviously I don't know what's gone from my mind palace, because it's not there for me to know what it is!"

"Right." Sherlock flopped back into the couch as John regarded him for a moment. Then, before he became too tempted to mentally catalog a list of Sherlock's dickhead failings, John crossed toward his chair. He picked up the two cups of tea. "How do you even know something is gone?" he asked, walking over to Sherlock and holding out a mug.

Absentmindedly, Sherlock took it. "Something's off." He shook his head slightly. "Something's wrong, and I don't know what it is, I've looked at it from every angle, but it's not _there_. There was something I knew but now I don't know it anymore. I don't know what it was, I just know I don't know it!"

Now it was John's turn to frown. "Something you knew and now you don't anymore? Sherlock…" John looked almost pitying. "That happens to everyone."

"It doesn't happen to me," Sherlock snapped. "I lose nothing from my mind palace unless I purposefully delete it."

John was careful not to sound patronizing. "Maybe you deleted this?"

"It was for a _case_, John, the fake Moriarty case. I never delete anything from a case."

John's eyes widened. "The case we just had? You forgot something from three days ago?"

"I didn't _forget_! I never forget, it's just _gone_. I had it, it was in my mind palace, and now it's gone.

John nodded as if he understood. And he did, sort of. From the beginning of their friendship, John had found Sherlock's mind palace astonishing (if obnoxiously named). Using the information he had stored there, Sherlock solved cases in seconds and deduced the secrets of strangers in less than that. It was why he was the world's only Consulting Detective.

But at the same time… as John knew from experience and his medical studies, over time, minds faltered. People got old. Brains got forgetful. Sherlock was pushing forty. Probably the greatest mental acuity he would have in his lifetime was now behind him.

"I'm not getting old, John," Sherlock said, glowering.

John had stopped questioning how Sherlock could read his mind years ago. "Nope. Definitely not."

Scowling, Sherlock took a sip of his tea, only to nearly spit it back out again. "What is this? Orange pekoe tea? This is Mary's tea! Why do are we drinking Mary's tea?"

"Because she guessed—rightly—that I wouldn't get a cuppa unless I brought it from home," John said. "You replaced the tea in the cupboard with some collection of... fungus."

Sherlock leapt to his feet. "Did you move it? That's an experiment!" Abandoning the tea, he strode off to the kitchen. John followed, not bothering to hide an eye roll.

Leaning against the door frame, John watched as Sherlock darted about the kitchen, assessing the damage (not that there was any, Christ, all he was doing was trying to make his friend a cup of tea). Sherlock didn't seem upset anymore. The problem with the mind palace had been compartmentalized and filed away. Sure, he was still groaning and sulking and pulling faces at the state of his experiment, but that was standard what-do-you-mean-the-world-doesn't-revolve-around-me stuff. Normal. Manageable. Not of the caliber that would make John scour the flat for illicit drugs.

Still. John was cautious. "Let's order take away. I'm hungry."

"Go home and eat dinner with your wife, John." Sherlock had transferred the green test tubes from the cupboard to the kitchen table and was now peering at them, head tilted, nose practically touching the glass.

"No, it's alright, I'll call Mary. She won't mind."

"Yes she will. She's angry with you."

"You said that, not me!"

"And I was right." Sherlock stood, snapping a pair of safety goggles over his eyes. "Please, it was entirely too dull for me to get the two of you back together the first time, I refuse to do it again."

John's mouth opened, ready for some pointed name-calling, but a laugh came out before he could help himself. "Arsehole." John crossed his arms. "You would too do it again."

Sherlock pressed his lips together. "Hm. Well let's not test out your little theory, shall we?" He bent back down over his work.

John grinned. "No, let's not. I'm still ordering take away for you." John opened an app on his phone and began to type in an order for nearby Chinese.

"Fine," Sherlock said, not looking up.

"And when it comes, eat it."

"Fine! Go, before Mary wonders where you are."

"She won't mind." John confirmed his order with a few more taps to the phone. "Not when I tell her you said she was a woman of _great intellect and courage_."

"John—!"

But John Watson was already halfway down the stairs, laughing his head off.

It was only two minutes after John left that Sherlock heard a different set of footsteps mounting the stairs. Not Mrs. Hudson's, his landlady who lived on the first floor. Heavier, a man, in dress shoes from the slap of the sole. Arriving so soon after John's departure could be a coincidence, but no, the universe was rarely so lazy. This visitor had been waiting outside, then, waiting for John to leave first so Sherlock would be alone when the request came, so that no one else know of this weekday evening summons—

"And how is my brother Mycroft doing," Sherlock said, still focused on his experiment, when a nondescript man stopped in his doorway.

Sherlock could hear the smile in the man's voice. "Why don't ya come ask him in person."

'Because I loathe my brother's company. Tell him I decline."

"Won't be possible, Mr. Holmes."

Sherlock stood suddenly, snapping his goggles up to his forehead. In less than a second, his eyes raced over the man, cataloging each detail: Irish ethnicity, expensive haircut, shoes polished by the man outside the chip shop (_god, another boring government lackey_) manicured nails, tailored suit—

Sherlock stopped short. What was that, there, under his jacket, right at his hip, too high to be something shoved in a pants pocket, very thin, like a pencil—

He snapped his eyes up to his visitor's. Placidly, the man blinked back, looking not quite at Sherlock, but just over his shoulder.

"Fine." Sherlock whipped the goggles off, tossing them on the counter. "I shall be delighted to accompany you."

The man nodded once. Eyes narrowed, Sherlock shrugged into his coat, the black Belstaff that for the love of God was just a serviceable, quality article of outerwear, not some ridiculous trademark as designated by those idiots working for the tabloids. He followed the lackey out to the black limo street waiting on the street. It promptly whisked them both off to a building not often mentioned on a street not always mapped where resided the office of a man whose position in the world was not quite ever understood.

The man in question stood, waiting, one hand resting on an umbrella more expensive than another man's entire wardrobe, when Sherlock swept into the room.

"Mycroft," Sherlock said.

"Brother dear," Mycroft Holmes replied. The corners of his lips were pulled up slightly in such a way that no one would ever mistake it for a smile. "How kind of you to come."

"How kind of you to act as if I had a choice." Sherlock glanced back to his escort, who had remained in the room after Mycroft's PA shut the door.

_Interesting_.

"Yes," Mycroft said, reading his brother's mind. "Our meeting this evening requires the presence of two others. This—" he gestured to the Irishman "—is Oliver Wood, one of Britain's more accomplished..." In a rare fit of discomfiture, Mycroft searched for the word.

"Spies?" Sherlock suggested.

"Citizens," Mycroft said, his look toward Sherlock becoming more of a pointed glare.

"Ah." Deliberately, Sherlock made no introductory gesture to this new acquaintance. Instead, he got straight to the point. "Mycroft, why am I here?"

Before Mycroft could begin to expound on Sherlock's appalling manners, there was a knock on the door. He settled for merely throwing a glare at his younger brother. "Our other guest arrives."

At Mycroft's nod, Oliver opened the door.

The woman standing there was petite and slim, with fair skin and dark curly hair pulled back into a twist. She was dressed more casually than the three of them, dark jeans over boots, cropped jacket over a—

Sherlock's eyes darted back to her jacket. There is was again, at her hip, that blip, that same thin blip, just like Oliver Wood's, something near the pocket but not in the pocket, something hidden—

"Sherlock," Mycroft said with that tight non-smile. "Meet Hermione Granger."


	2. Chapter 2

With a pleasant smile, Hermione entered Mycroft's office. "Mr. Holmes," she said in greeting, holding out her hand to Mycroft. He shook it with only a minimum amount of his usual disdain. Indeed, his smile was almost looking like… a smile.

"Oliver!" Hermione strode across the room to the other man, who leaned down to hug her. She kissed him on the cheek. Sherlock masked his surprise. Obviously, these two knew each other well, though they were not family, otherwise the man would have kissed her cheek as well. But not just co-workers, not just schoolmates, though that may have been true. They had been through something more than that. They had been soldiers together on the same side.

And from the way Oliver was standing at attention toward her, Hermione had been someone in charge. With a shock, Sherlock realized that even Mycroft's shoulders had relaxed somewhat deferentially.

"Mr. Holmes," Hermione said, striding toward Sherlock with her hand out.

Sherlock merely looked at her. He was interested to note that his ventromedial prefrontal cortex registered Hermione Granger as attractive. This happened occasionally. As deeply versed in the biological sciences as he was, Sherlock knew it would be idiotic for him to pretend his brain did not contain sexual urges. It was merely a matter of overpowering the amygdala, conscientiously choosing to ignore these baser instincts.

For her part, Hermione found Sherlock to look just like he did in the pictures on file: tall, lanky, elegant. And it was true that tall and lanky was her type. But work was work. Hermione was a professional. And she planned to stay a professional, thank you very much. Every time she became involved with a man, inevitably the conversation would arise wherein she would explain that she didn't want to have children. And inevitably, the men would then look confused. Once, she'd said to her ex-boyfriend Ron that she'd consider a baby if the father wanted to take on the majority of childcare so she could continue with her work. He had looked even _more_ confused.

All this left Hermione more resolute than ever in her commitment to her work, and more reluctant for a relationship. Maybe in ten years, when her childbearing years were behind her. Till then, a combination of one-night stands and long-distance acquaintanceships fulfilled her need. That, and a few sturdy vibrators.

Sherlock Holmes was scrutinizing her, his abrasive gaze as deliberate as the hands he kept behind his back. Hermione suppressed an eyeroll. Yet another reason not to have children: she already encountered so many dressed up as adults.

"Your brother advised me of your appalling manners," Hermione said, hand still outstretched. "I suppose he was correct?"

Sherlock stiffened. Given the option between following insipid social protocols and allowing his brother to be right, the choice was clear. He put his gloved hand in hers.

"Ms. Granger," he said, not showing his surprise at the strength of her grip.

"Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Holmes."

"Sherlock. 'Mr. Holmes' is my brother." There was no hiding disdain for said brother in Sherlock's voice. Remembering that it was that interfering Mycroft that put him in front of his attractive (_no ignore!)_ woman in the first place, Sherlock looked at Hermione with irritation. "And who are you?"

Hermione twisted her lips, entertained by this man-child despite herself. "I thought you were supposed to be able to tell me?"

Sherlock whipped a glare at Mycroft, who smirked. Just how much did his brother say to Hermione? Well fine. Let her learn what happened when you poked at a sleeping panther.

Eyes glinting, Sherlock turned on Hermione and began his rapid-fire deductions: "Teeth very straight, very white, but no trace of an American accent. Your parents are dentists. You, however are a fighter, from your stance, one who's been through a war. No response when I mentioned 'American' though, so not a war one involving them, which is all of them."

Mycroft snorted at that. Sherlock ignored him.

"A secret war, then. From the way you unconsciously touch your left forearm you were injured there, there's a scar. No one aims for the forearm in a fight, this was purposeful. It was torture."

His mind was moving so fast Sherlock almost didn't realize the deduction until he said it out loud. _Torture_. This tiny woman, staring at him now with a tight jaw, her hands tensed into loose fists, had been tortured. This woman who would insist she could take care of herself, who would be able to take care of herself, but who Sherlock would still want to shove behind him in a fight while he was the one to absorb blows, he was the one to protect—

(_What? No, stop! Ignore ignore ignore_)

Sherlock barrelled on. "Indents on your nose from glasses. You're not wearing them now, so they're only for reading. Reading glasses are for old people, you are young, preventing poor eyesight then, required because you are a voracious reader. Smart. Top of your class. Not at a state school, either, no a private boarding school, where the colors were maroon and gold, the mascot a lion, going from the tag on your keychain."

Hermione, realizing the tip of her keychain was in fact sticking out of the outer pocket of her messenger bag, shoved the keys further down.

Sherlock had his eyes closed. "Though no record of any such school meeting that description in my mind palace, interesting—"

"What's a mind palace?" Oliver asked, squinting at Sherlock with increasing bemusement.

Sherlock opened his mouth, but before he could answer, Hermione did. "A way of organizing data in the brain so that it is never forgotten and always retrievable," she said, with the chin-lifting confidence of one who knows she always has the right answer. "Information is placed in specific ways within an architectural framework, usually a set of rooms or perhaps a house." She cut her eyes to Sherlock. "Though it is a bit show-offy to employ an entire mind _palace_."

Oliver's eyebrows shot up in disbelief. "A bit show-offy? That, coming from you? Mind palace sounds like something _you'd_ have, Hermione."

"I do _not_ have a mind palace." Hermione said primly. "I have a mind _library_."

Mycroft's lips twitched.

Hermione turned to Sherlock. "Anything else?"

He realized his mouth had dropped open. He closed it. "Um. Yes." He wanted to take a deep breath and steady himself, but that would indicate he had been unsteadied in the first place. He just plowed on. "Callouses on your hands in alignment with frequently gripping a pole. You've either had to slide down a pole frequently or climb up one. Someone who's usually sneaking around, then. Jeans are stiff, no wear in the belt, clothes are new. Whatever you wear usually, it isn't your standard Western dress. You are required to wear something else for your super secret government job."

Hermione's eyebrow lifted. "What makes you think I have a super secret government job?"

With a false smile, Sherlock spread his hands wide. "That fact that you are in Mycroft's office." The fake smile dropped. "And your weapon."

"Weapon."

Sherlock nodded at her hip. "Not a gun, that would be too bulky. This is thin, extremely thin, extremely useful, your fingers keep flexing, wanting to grab for it. You're itching to pull it out."

"Almost as much as you're itching to find out what it is," Mycroft said, strolling toward Hermione. Sherlock scowled, realizing he was the only one in the room ignorant about the object. He hated that. Mycroft smirked. "Go on then," he said to Hermione.

Without taking her eyes off of Sherlock, Hermione pushed back the side of her jacket and withdrew from the waistband of her jeans—

"A wand," she said, twisting it nimbly in her fingers.

Sherlock stilled.

"Hermione Granger is a witch," Mycroft said, with all the pleasure one could get from thoroughly gutting a sibling's understanding of the world. He nearly rocked back on his heels with satisfaction. This was better than the time he told Sherlock as a child where babies came from.

"Incidentally, the callouses are from riding a broomstick," Hermione said. Then, knowing how bewildered the Muggle must be, she gave a small smile. "Though it is true that I'm usually sneaking around."

The only response from Sherlock was a slight widening of his eyes. Otherwise, his face was expressionless.

Hermione cut her eyes to Mycroft, then back to Sherlock. It was a shock, it was a ridiculous shock for anyone from the Muggle world to learn of the existence of magic, though in Hermione's case it had been more of a relief. It had explained so much, the bizarre things that happened when she'd been angry as a child.

But Sherlock would have no sense of the pieces falling into place. To him, learning of the wizarding world would be like a puzzle he had already solved suddenly falling apart.

Which explained why his face had suddenly hardened into a look of pure fury.

"This is preposterous," Sherlock spat out at Mycroft. "Your little games have gone far enough. Too far, Mycroft." He seethed, chest rising heavily. The gall of his brother, trying to make Sherlock believe in this supernatural nonsense. Jaw clenched so tightly he could barely spit out the words, Sherlock said, "Don't _ever_ come to me for help again."

Coat billowing, he whirled around to leave.

And found himself staring down the length of another wand. Oliver Wood stood in front of the door, arm outstretched. And from the way he held the wand, Sherlock knew he had indeed been correct: this _was_ a weapon.

"We'd like it very much if you stayed," Oliver said mildly.

Sherlock's eyes were running up and down every inch of the wand pointing at his chest. Without looking up he said, "I suppose if she is a witch then that would make you a wizard."

"Yes." Oliver's tone was not unfriendly, but it did carry an unmistakable note of finality.

"Witches and wizards, Sherlock." Mycroft spread his hands, though his smile was not quite so ingratiating as it had been. "They exist."

Hermione, having slipped her wand away, was flicking her eyes back and forth between the two brothers. Ron-the-ex had been one of seven, and visiting his house was one long lesson in the perils of siblinghood. But still, Hermione had had never felt so grateful to be an only child as she was at that moment.

"It can be a lot to take in," she said, stepping forward, her peacekeeper instinct kicking in. "My friend Harry was saying the other day that he didn't think it really sunk in until Hagrid turned his cousin into a pig."

With a tight smile, Sherlock turned to his brother. "Well then Mycroft, step forward so Miss Granger can kindly do her part in convincing me."

Hermione pressed her lips into a thin line. "I wasn't offering to turn your brother into a pig!"

"You weren't? Pity." Sherlock sighed dramatically, then clapped his gloved hands together. "Well, as it seems this charade is of no benefit to me, I do believe it is time for me to leave."

"If you'd like, I can give you a demonstration of how I will make you stay," Oliver said, wand still outstretched.

"Oliver," Hermione said warningly.

Had such superlatives existed at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Oliver Wood would surely have been voted "Dreamiest Eyes." As it was, he had still reaped the benefits. His puppy-dog look could stop a witch in her tracks almost as effectively as the Impediment Curse.

He directed those soulful eyes at Hermione. "C'mon. Please?"

Hermione was unmoved. "You know as well as I the regulations against magic performed on Muggles. Only under specific circumstances." She cut her eyes toward Sherlock. "Unfortunately, being a complete git is not one of them."

Oliver sulked. "But he'd've looked so funny with the Jelly Legs Curse, his big coat flapping around-"

"What is a _Muggle_?" Sherlock spat.

"Someone who's not a wizard or a witch," Oliver said. "Non-magical. Like you."

Pivoting slowly, Sherlock directed a look of appalled disbelief toward his brother. "Did he just imply that that odious term somehow applies to _me_?"

Mycroft's tone was sardonic. "If it helps, apparently I too fall within the category of 'Muggle.'"

"It doesn't." Jaw set, Sherlock turned toward the exit.

But Hermione was standing in his way. "Wait," she said. She grabbed an exquisite china teacup off of a table near the door. "Watch."

She tapped the cup with her wand. Soundlessly, instantly, the teacup turned into a gerbil.

Sherlock blinked. Then he blinked again.

He reached out and picked the rodent up. It was definitely a real gerbil. So real it bit at Sherlock's gloved hand, making a small slash in the black leather. A faint thought rose in the back of his head about how much it would take to replace these gloves. Sherlock grabbed hold of it. If the alternative was a meditation on how the animal had disconcertingly burst into existence, Sherlock would gladly chose the comfort of fuming over new gloves.

Sherlock opened his mouth to complain. Before he could speak, Hermione pointed her wand again. The gerbil once again became a teacup.

Sherlock closed his mouth.

Taking the teacup from Sherlock and placing it back on the table, Hermione held out her hand to Sherlock. "Let me see your glove," she said.

Wordlessly, Sherlock lifted the hand with the gerbil bite in it. Hermione grasped it, palm up, so the mar was clearly visible. She raised her wand, then paused.

"I assume you want me to fix this, but perhaps you'd rather keep it as a reminder?" she asked. Sherlock could only blink in response. "Right. Well, if you want it back, I can always turn another teacup into a gerbil. _Reparo_," Hermione said, and the glove mended itself instantly.

Sherlock gazed at the now-perfect glove. He flexed his fingers. He twisted his hand over and back again. He flexed his fingers again. Then he looked at Hermione and said, for maybe the second or third time in his life, absolutely nothing.

Mycroft smirked. "Rare are the occasions when one can render Sherlock Holmes speechless. Well done, Ms. Granger."

Hermione, suddenly self-conscious as Sherlock openly stared at her, looked down at the floor. Oliver, meanwhile, was sheathing his wand and doing a moderate job of suppressing his delight at Sherlock's startled expression.

Gesturing toward the seating area, Mycroft said. "Now, if we are all sufficiently convinced, let us turn to the matter at hand, shall we?"

He strode toward the largest of the lushly-upholstered chairs, which were grouped around a mahogany coffee table. Hermione and Oliver took the seats across from him. Sherlock was left to sit beside his brother. As with the punctured glove, this was a secret relief. Mentally griping about his proximity to Mycroft let Sherlock to shove aside all thoughts of this new universe in which there were things like wizards and witches and magic and wands and god all Sherlock wanted to do was go deep into his mind palace and not come out for _days_.

Scowling petulantly, Sherlock dropped down next to Mycroft. Knowing exactly what was in Sherlock's mind, and exactly what Sherlock wished wasn't in his mind, amused Mycroft greatly. What they were about to discuss, however, did not.

Lips pursed tightly, Mycroft said to Sherlock, "Your life, dear brother, is in danger."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "What else is new." Ah, the comfort of sarcasm, letting Sherlock feel like he had his footing back, let him pretend that the world hadn't just been tipped upside down and shaken. _Hard_.

Mycroft was unamused. "Indeed. Though this time, your adversary is quite a bit more dangerous."

"Who could possibly be more dangerous than Moriarty?"

It was Hermione who answered. "The person who could bring Moriarty back."

It took Sherlock a second before he could reply, "You mean that video of Moriarty last week, you're implying that was actually him."

"No. I'm _saying_ it was actually him."

Sherlock's eyebrows furrowed. "They arrested a man, a man with some ridiculous name—"

"Mundungus Fletcher."

"—Confessed everything. Said it was all a hoax."

Mycroft gave Sherlock a look that said, _God you are so slow_.

Sherlock pressed his lips together. "Moriarty is _dead_. I saw him with the back of his head blown off."

"Didn' see the back of his head in that video, did ya?" Oliver said.

Sherlock shot a glare toward Oliver. It was becoming his standard response to anything the Irishman said.

Again jumping into the role of peacekeeper, Hermione spoke up. "Technically, Moriarty is still dead. It's just that his body has been magically reanimated."

Now Sherlock directed his lethal gaze at Hermione. "Ah, well that is _much_ more conceivable."

She ignored his dirty look. "You're right that it hadn't been thought it could be done. My research shows it's some variation on the Inferi spell. Normally, it allows for only basic movement in a corpse, controlling the arms and legs. But I've been studying the theory, and used in combination with the Imperious Curse, it could be possible to control the vocal cords and the facial muscles. But only a very skilled wizard could do it, a very skilled Dark wizard."

All Sherlock's notions of what was bizarre and what was real and what was bizarre yet also real were exploding. It was making him rather irritable. "I see," he sneered. "And who is this skilled Dark wizard?"

Mycroft shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "We are working to acquire that intelligence."

"Oh just say you don't know, Mycroft," Sherlock snapped.

"We don't know," Hermione said calmly.

"Of course you don't, that's why you called me here. Fine. I'll need all the files on wizards with a criminal records, get that to me and I will give you an answer within an hour."

Mycroft looked at his brother, tilting his head just so. "You aren't here to take the case."

Sherlock very carefully schooled his expression so that his confusion did not show on his face. He looked from Mycroft (smug) to Oliver (smug) to Hermione (fetching, really-_stop that!_), who was passing a manila envelope across the coffee table to him.

Sherlock took it, lifted the flap, and pulled out the contents.

They were all photographs of him. Going in and out of St. Barts, New Scotland Yard, 221b Baker Street. And also _inside_ of St. Barts, New Scotland Yard, 221b Baker street. They were not from security cameras; the angle of the pictures was head-on. Sherlock glanced at one photo of him in his kitchen, looking through his microscope. The only way that particular shot could have been taken was if the photographer had been standing directly across the table from him.

He opened his mouth, wanting to question how this extreme breach of privacy could have occurred without his knowing, but what came out instead was, "They're moving."

Hermione nodded. "In wizard photographs, the subjects move." In the kitchen photograph, Sherlock twiddled at the microscope dials, while another taken in Lestrade's office had him gesticulating as the Detective Inspector rolled his eyes.

Still leaning over the coffee table toward him, Hermione said, "Someone is after you, Sherlock. Someone magical."

His eyes snapped up to hers. "You're magical. How do I know it's not you?"

She glared back just as fiercely. "I'm here to _help_ you, Sherlock."

Oliver leaned back against the cushions of his chair and grinned. "Oh this'll be fun. You two are gonna be perfect for each other."

Sherlock whipped his head toward Mycroft. "What is he talking about? Is he implying Ms. Granger is to work with me? I don't need another assistant, I already have John."

The look Mycroft gave Sherlock could intimidate a dictator. Indeed, on more than one occasion, it had. "John Watson is not to know a single thing about this."

"The Statute of Secrecy is one of the most important laws in the wizarding world," Hermione said, having recollected some of her professionalism. "Only very few Muggles are aware of our existence, and keeping our presence hidden from the rest is rigorously upheld. It will make your protection a little trickier, but the magical shield I will put around 221b Baker Street won't be noticed by any Muggles that go in and out of our flat."

There were a lot of words there, but Sherlock narrowed right in on the most confounding one. "'_Our_?'"

It could only be bad news, Sherlock thought, because Mycroft smiled before delivering it. He always smiled before delivering bad news. "Ms. Granger will be staying at 221b Baker Street until such time as this threat has been eliminated."

As it did any other time Sherlock was faced with a sudden quandary, his brain burst into action. Multiple threads of thought spun madly, simultaneously:

• _god he hated Mycroft, such a brat, even when they were children he'd been overbearing, but this was too much, placing an actual operative in his house, Mycroft had far overreached this time_—

• _he had to find out who this stalker wizard was, because of course he was going to find out who he was, Sherlock didn't care what Mycroft said, he was taking this case_—

• _the strands of hair that had slipped from Hermione's clip were a bit frizzy, but would they be soft? he bet they'd be soft (no no stop ignore!)_

• _he needed to find out any and everything about wizards and witches and their magical world, though obviously that knowledge would be kept highly guarded from him as a non-magical person (no he would never ever ever refer to himself by that infantile name)_

• _there must be a library but he'd need access, there must be files but he'd need access, there must be records but he'd need_—

• _Hermione! She probably had access everywhere, and she was clever, perhaps she already had all the information he'd need, it would only be a matter of obtaining it from her, something that would go much more quickly if she were often in close proximity_—

• _her staying in 221b Baker Street would actually be the most efficient way of gathering the data he would need to solve the case_—

• _her staying in 221b Baker Street was what Mycroft wanted, Sherlock couldn't possibly indicate any acceptance of a plan Mycroft had conceived_—

Having arrived at the only possible course of action he could take, Sherlock stood. Without a word, he turned on his heel and strode toward the door.

Hermione's forehead creased in alarm, but Mycroft held up his hand to her, shaking his head slightly. He knew exactly what was going through his brother's head. As usual. After directing a satisfied look at Hermione and Oliver, Mycroft twisted in his chair and called out to his brother, "Oh, and Sherlock? Do know that Ms. Granger is not your assistant."

Unable to help himself, Sherlock looked back at his smirking brother and the slight witch across from him.

"She is your _bodyguard_."


	3. Chapter 3

Sherlock arrived at his flat, having abruptly left Mycroft's office without Hermione, and immediately set to scouring his mind palace for any hints of the wizarding world. He came up with precisely nothing. _I always miss something_, Sherlock thought, looking in room after room after room, _but how the bloody hell did I miss the existence of an entire race of supernatural human beings?_

Growing ever more irritable, Sherlock had finally opened his eyes only to see one of those supernatural human beings standing in his doorway.

"How long have you been there?" he demanded. A glance at the clock told him he himself had only been home half an hour.

Hermione's eyebrows were creased with irritation. "A good ten minutes!"

Sherlock looked not unpleased with himself. "I must be improving. Usually it's at least a few hours."

He popped up out of his chair and strode toward the entry where Hermione stood. Leaning over her shoulder, he bellowed down the stairs, "MRS. HUDSON!"

Hermione gave a startled jump, then cast a deeply annoyed look at Sherlock which he promptly ignored. Instead, he turned and retreated to his sitting room. Jaw set, Hermione stalked in behind him, several choice descriptors regarding his manners on the tip of her tongue.

Sherlock's dressing gown whirled around him as he twisted and sat once more on the couch. Hermione paused, only a few inches away, hands on hips. But before she could begin what Sherlock knew would be an insufferably dull tirade, he shouted again. "MRS. HUDSON!"

"Goodness, Sherlock, I'm right here! Really, your mother must still have nightmares about you."

The woman who had appeared in the doorway from downstairs had acquired quite a number of years, but never lost a bit of her spunk. A look into her past would reveal a deft negotiation of criminal entanglements, but despite this, or perhaps because of it, Mrs. Hudson had a soft spot for Sherlock. Even now, as she huffed at her lodger, a corner of her mouth twitched.

"Manners, dear boy, manners!" She nodded her head once as if to finalize her point, knowing perfectly well it was one that would bear repeating again, and again, and again.

Knowing exactly what she was thinking, and what she was pretending she wasn't thinking, Sherlock deftly hid a smile. "Mrs. Hudson, this is Hermione Granger. She will be staying in John's old room for the time being. Hermione, Mrs. Hudson. My landlady." Sherlock very pointedly did not say 'our' landlady.

If Hermione caught this snub, she ignored it. Instead, she strode straight over to Mrs. Hudson, hand outstretched. "I'm so pleased to meet you," Hermione said without a hint of inauthenticity.

After dealing with the current resident of 221b for so many years, Mrs. Hudson warmed immediately to a polite new lodger. "The pleasure is mine, dear," she said, taking Hermione's hand between both of hers.

Before the two women could do anything more than beam at each other, Sherlock interrupted. "Do go and make John's room presentable, Mrs. Hudson."

Hermione shot Sherlock an appalled look, though for her part, Mrs. Hudson only sniffed. "Just this once, dear, I'm not your housekeeper." She turned toward the stairs that led up to the second bedroom and bath above.

"No!" Hermione jumped in front of her. She plastered a smile on her face. "You don't need to do that, Mrs. Hudson." Only Sherlock caught how Hermione's fingers began tapping fast against her thigh.

Mrs. Hudson smiled. "It's no trouble dear, I know I said that to Sherlock, but I don't mind." She moved up to the first step.

Hermione jumped up to the second. "Are those biscuits I'm smelling? Is that coming from your flat?"

"Oh!" Mrs. Hudson fluttered a little, remembering she had baking in the oven.

"Do you put nuts in yours? I'd love to see your recipe." Hermione stepped down so that she was level with Mrs. Hudson. She stretched an arm to put around Mrs. Hudson's shoulders, but of course that meant the older woman would have to turn around first, which she did without question. Gracefully, Hermione escorted her new landlady away from the entrance to her room.

All in all it was a rather smooth move, Sherlock thought, impressed despite himself.

"You know, I don't use nuts," Mrs. Hudson was saying as they went down the stairs to the ground floor. "Though my husband used to love them. This was before he was sent away to prison, of course."

"Of-Of course," Hermione said, eyes widening. She glanced back at Sherlock, who smirked. He watched them until they turned the corner, waiting until he heard the sound of tea being made below him. Then, taking the steps two at a time, he dashed up to John's old/Hermione's new room and opened the door.

The room, which a half-hour ago had been empty, had been fully moved into. In addition to a new dresser, there were two huge bookshelves that Sherlock knew hadn't been there yesterday, each holding dozens of leather-bound tomes. More books were stacked on the dresser, along with a curious glass ball with a large spike through it. A few were piled up next to the right side of the bed, apparently Hermione's side (interesting, and he slept on the left side, rather complementary-_no ignoreignoreingore!)_.

He took a few steps into the room, stroked his fingers across the hardbound book atop the dresser pile. Without any consideration of propriety, he opened it.

The pages were blank.

Shifting it aside, Sherlock opened the second.

It was blank, too.

As was the third, and fourth, and fifth. As were all of the books he pulled at random from off of the bookcases. Whether they were crisp pages of new books or the fragile pages of ancient tomes, they were blank.

"Anti-Muggle charm," said a voice.

Sherlock looked up. Hermione was standing in the doorway, looking distinctly unimpressed with him. "It's put on so only witches or wizards can read them. Though maybe I should rename it an anti-Sherlock charm."

Sherlock slid the book he was holding back into its spot on the shelf. "You didn't want Mrs. Hudson to come upstairs because you didn't want her to see you'd moved in, despite having walked through the front door less than thirty minutes ago, a feat you were only able to accomplish with magic."

Hermione narrowed her eyes, tilted her head. "That deduction was rather obvious, don't you think?"

Sherlock's lips thinned. "What's in the books?"

"I'm not saying."

"Charms? Spells? History of wizarding? Ah, all of those things, judging from how you looked at different areas of your bookcase. Interesting." Sherlock turned slowly, taking in all the sources of knowledge in the room. "Very interesting."

"Very off limits," Hermione said, crossing toward Sherlock and grabbing him by the elbow. She pulled him out of the room. "I presume, seeing as we are both adults, that I do not need to tell you not to come into my room without my permission again."

"Of course not."

"Good."

"I would have just deleted it."

Hermione's eyebrowes v'ed together. She clenched her fists. "Honestly, Sherlock, you have the consideration of a baboon! Fine. Let me make it very clear to you, then: if you try to enter my room again, I'll put on an anti-intruder jinx that will knock you all the way back down the stairs!"

And stomping back into her room, she slammed the door closed in Sherlock's face.

For a moment, Sherlock merely glared at the door. Then he whirled about, dashing down the stairs and across the sitting room to pick up his violin. Looking as naturally elegant as ever, he began sawing across the strings, creating a horrendous screeching that would make glass quiver.

_Thump thump thump thump thump_.

Sherlock contained a self-satisfied smile. Good. That was Hermione was coming down the stairs to demand he desist. As if he would even consider it. If Hermione thought she was could be unreasonably irritating, she had never lived with a high-functioning sociopath.

He swung toward the sitting room door with a fake smile, still sawing away, awaiting the moment when Hermione would make her demands for his silence and he would oh-so-deliberately ignore them. What he saw in the doorway made him stop short.

Hermione was standing there, her wand pointed straight at him.

"_Muffliato_!" she shouted.

There was a slight brush of air, but Sherlock observed no other indication that she had performed a spell.

Narrowing his eyes, he put the bow to the strings again. The noise was just as loud as before.

He smirked. "It appears your little spell is defective."

Hermione's smirk was bigger. "You can hear it. But I can't." And without another word, she turned on her heel and went back upstairs.

For a moment, Sherlock merely listened to her retreat. Then, sighing, he put his violin and bow back in its case. He might as well continue his research into any hints of this secret magic world. There certainly was no use in him playing purposefully-awful violin now. What was the point she couldn't hear it? After all, he certainly didn't want to have to listen to that racket.

* * *

><p>Sherlock stayed up late, cataloguing ways to get into Hermione's room, sorting all the information about her and her world in his mind palace. He still had found nothing there that should have indicated to him earlier the reality of wizards and witches. Finally, having gone nearly four days without sleep, he collapsed on his bed.<p>

When he woke, he could hear John and Mrs. Hudson chattering in low voices in the kitchen. Good. If Mrs. Hudson was here, that meant tea, and if John were here this early, that meant Mary had forced him to bring by a bacon butty. Though it was true Sherlock found eating dull, the aversion obviously didn't extend to bacon butties, because _bacon_.

Throwing on his blue silk dressing gown, Sherlock moved out of his bedroom, down the short hall, and into the kitchen. He sat at the table, thoroughly ignoring John and Mrs. Hudson except to pull the provisions they had provided closer to him. No need for a plate, the butty was wrapped in wax paper and with the paper bag smashed flat on the table, all greasy drips would be captured. Without a word, Sherlock took a great gulp of tea and shoved in the sandwich.

"And good morning to you, too, Sherlock," John said, mouth twisting in amusement.

Sherlock rolled his eyes before shooting a look at John. "Oh don't tell me you now wish to engage in these morning greeting rituals. We never did them while you lived here, there's no reason to start now that you don't live here."

"'_We_?' I don't think so. _You _never did them."

"Exactly." Point proven, Sherlock resumed eating his butty.

John blinked, unsure how he'd lost that particular battle. It was not an unfamiliar feeling when it came to talking with Sherlock. The difference, after five years of such conversations, was that John realized much more quickly that he didn't care. "Right." John rolled his eyes. "Well, no need to stick around then, I'm meeting Mary at her doctor's–"

There were light footsteps on the stairs coming down from the third floor. Bemused, John stood, only for Hermione to appear in the doorway.

John's eyes widened. He looked from Sherlock to the woman and back to Sherlock again. If John was looking for an introduction, though, it would not come from Sherlock. Apparently, no acknowledgement at all of this new woman in 221b Baker Street would come from Sherlock.

"Good morning, dear, did you sleep well?" Mrs. Hudson said, bustling about to get another cup of tea.

Hermione's eyes were still a bit bewildered with sleep. "I-yes, thanks, Mrs. Hudson." She looked at John. "Hello."

Mrs. Hudson jumped into do the social niceties. "John, this is Ms. Hermione Granger, she's staying in your old room," Mrs. Hudson said as she passed Hermione her cup of tea. "Hermione, this is Dr. John Watson, Sherlock's best friend."

Hermione, just taking her first sip, spluttered it everywhere.

Sherlock exhaled very loudly.

"I'm sorry, what?" Hermione said, wiping tea driblets off of her chin. Sherlock, having finally decided her presence was worth acknowledging, had twisted around to give her a dirty look.

John grinned. "Sometimes it still surprises me, too."

"Oh shut up, John," Sherlock said.

"Sherlock! That's not a nice way to speak to your best friend," Mrs. Hudson scolded.

Hermione was wide-eyed. "You mean she's being serious? You have a… friend?"

Sherlock, resumed facing the table, although the glare remained. "Obviously, I must have more than one, if I am to have one that is best."

Hermione looked curiously at Mrs. Hudson. "That's very sweet, so you must be his friend also?"

Mrs. Hudson's eyes widened as she fluttered her hands about. "No no _no_, dear, I'm his _landlady_."

It was John's turn snort out his tea. Seeing the mutinous look on Sherlock's face, he decided to do his friend a favor and change the subject. "So, Hermione," he said. "What brings you to Baker Street then?"

Sherlock lifted an eyebrow at Hermione, realizing they had never settled on a cover story. She raised both of hers back at him. He responded by cramming the last bit of sandwich in his mouth.

Squelching an eyeroll, Hermione planted on a nondescript smile. "I work for Mycroft."

"_Ah_," said John knowingly.

"Yes," she agreed.

Sherlock pushed down the thought that Hermione had handled that quite neatly. Instead, he stood abruptly.

"Ms. Granger is staying here only temporarily until I can blackmail Mycroft into making her leave. Til then, I am certain she will stay well out of my way."

John smiled at Hermione. "He has such a way of making you feel right at home, doesn't he?"

Hermione bit back a grin. Sighing dramatically, she said to Sherlock, "There go my plans for seducing you."

Mrs. Hudson tittered as Sherlock stiffened. His attempt to look unruffled was thwarted by the fact that his eyes were almost perfectly round. "_Were_ you planning to seduce me?" he asked, thinking of The Woman.

"What? Sherlock-"

"Were you planning for _me _to seduce _you_?"

Hermione gaped at him. It took her a second to find her words. "You don't know anything about women, do you?" she finally said.

"Nope!" said John.

"_Shut up_, John!" said Sherlock.

"Oh–_oh_," said Hermione.

"What?"

She pointed back and forth between the two men. "You two are–"

"We are _not_ together," John said. Sherlock didn't even bother to respond. He merely stood up from the table and walked back into his bedroom as if no one had ever been talking to him.

Mrs. Hudson patted his hand. "It's fine, John, we're all supportive no matter who you love."

"Mrs. Hudson, I have a wife who is pregnant with my child! Don't you think I would know that I was not gay?"

"Well I wouldn't know, dear, young people do things so differently these days."

_I'm in a madhouse_, Hermione thought, blinking back and forth between a huffing John and an indulgent Mrs. Hudson. _I have lived in places with ghosts and ghouls and staircases that moved at whim but only now am I living in a place that is just plain nuts._ For an absolute lack of anything else she could think of to do, Hermione collected Sherlock's dishes as well as the tea things and took them to the sink.

"Eeek!" she shrieked.

John rushed up and looked over her shoulder into the stainless steel basin. "Knuckles! That's new. Usually he goes for the full finger." Hermione looked at him in alarm. Becoming serious, John said, "Advice on living with Sherlock: be very firm when it comes to the fridge and his body parts."

"Right," gasped Hermione. Be firm. That would be simple. All she had to do was just firmly insist on the extremely normal practice of keeping dead human bits far, far away from real human food.

"It took a while," John continued, "But I finally have him trained to keep body parts in the crispers and the bottom shelves, but not on the top. You hear that, Sherlock?!" John had leaned out into the hall and was shouting at Sherlock's closed bedroom door. "Off the top shelf!"

The door swung open. Sherlock emerged, as coolly elegant as ever in a slim suit. "You don't live here anymore, John, you no longer have any input."

"But now I live here!" Hermione said.

Sherlock waved a hand vaguely. "You'll get used to it," he said, before getting distracted by his mobile.

John looked empathetically at Hermione. "The terrible thing is, you probably will."

She opened her mouth, but before she could figure out what to say she was interrupted by a shout from Sherlock.

"Ha! Molly's got the bodies from the Jameson case. John, let's go!" Sherlock grabbed his coat from off of the hook and swung it on.

"Sherlock, I'm going to meet Mary at her doctor's, I told you that!"

"What? She just had an appointment seven days ago!"

"Third trimester, they're every week now. And don't you dare tell me to cancel on her, you're the one who said she was angry, right?"

Still texting, Sherlock glanced up toward the Mrs. Hudson and Hermione. "He's trying to have intercourse with his wife," he informed them.

"Sherlock!"

"I'll go with you," said Hermione.

Sherlock stopped tapping on his phone. "No."

"Yes."

"You are not coming."

"Obviously I am."

"Obviously you are not."

"Why not?" John said. "I can't go, you know you like to have someone to talk at."

"Talk _to_," Sherlock said through clenched teeth.

John grinned. "Talk _at_."

"I'm going," Hermione said, looking very pointedly at Sherlock. Her eyes said, _You know it's Mycroft's orders_. And her smile said, _You know you don't want me to tell John I'm your bodyguard._

Sherlock yanked on his black leather gloves. "Fine."

"Good," Hermione said cheerfully. "Couldn't just stick around here, I'd get bored."

John looked back and forth between Sherlock and Hermione, hugely entertained. "Good god," he said, "You two are perfect for each other."


	4. Chapter 4

The first thirteen minutes of the cab ride to St. Bartholomew's went by in silence. Sherlock had barked at the cabbie to silence his radio immediately upon entering the car and then took to glaring out the window. Hermione caught the cabbie looking at them twice in his rearview mirror, the second time mouthing "Lovers' tiff" to himself.

It made Hermione suddenly wonder what it would be like to take Sherlock as a lover. On the face of it, he appeared to have the interpersonal capabilities of a brick. But still, the possibility demanded examination. She couldn't imagine him being the oafish type to fuck until he ejaculated before flopping over and passing out, leaving the woman high and dry. Maybe it would be merely a sense of duty, but she bet Sherlock would insist that his women orgasm. He'd ensure it. After all, he did have all that knowledge of… anatomy.

"Why are you flushed?" Sherlock said.

Hermione whipped her head toward him. For a moment, the neurological connection between the language center of her brain and her tongue short-circuited, leaving her open-mouthed but wordless. Then she pushed out the first words she could think of. "I was thinking of you naked."

She tried to pass it off as facetious, and succeeded. It was now Sherlock who was blushing. Hermione grinned at him. He scowled.

"I need to know everything there is to know about this case," he demanded, changing the subject.

Hermione frowned. "Why would I know anything about it? Won't you learn what you need to know when we get to the morgue?"

Sherlock huffed in exasperation. "Not _that_ case, _this_ case, the case of my stalker."

Hermione cut her eyes to the back of the cabbie's head. Sherlock saw her surreptitiously pull her wand out. There was again that briefest shift in the air. She put her wand away.

She turned to him, the set of her mouth firm. "I can't."

Sherlock was looking toward the cabbie. "He can't hear us."

"No."

"You did the same spell you did last night."

"Yes."

"_Muffliato_."

Hermione was not surprised Sherlock remembered the spell. After all, he was Sherlock. She was surprised by how pleased his memory of her spell made her feel. "Yes."

"Why didn't you say it aloud?"

"I did it nonverbally. It takes a bit of practice, but almost every spell can be performed nonverbally."

"You said it aloud to me." His eyes narrowed as he looked her up and down, deducing. "You wanted me to know you were performing a spell. You wanted me to know you could no longer hear the violin. Showing off? No, you've been so careful to do the minimum amount of magic needed while around me. Then why else would you–_oh_." Self-consciousness flooded through him. He remembered the last thought he had had while putting the violin away: _he certainly didn't want to listen to that racket._

Hermione smiled. "Though a ruptured eardrum will heal within four weeks, I thought it best for your protection if you avoided deafness."

Sherlock felt strangely bolstered by this. Hermione wasn't being nice. She had merely deduced the best circumstances in which she could do her job and acted accordingly. She had acted out of _intelligence_, not _sentiment_. It rather heightened Sherlock's opinion of her.

Not that he would ever indicate this to Hermione. His tone clipped, he said, "Who is Mundungus Fletcher?"

Hermione raised her eyebrows but gave away nothing. Sherlock huffed and said, "Please, don't pretend that he really was the one behind the Moriarty stunt. He may be a thief but that old man in no way is a hacker."

Hermione pressed her lips together. She shrugged.

Anger shot up Sherlock's spine. "It is absolutely preposterous that I am not given access to the most basic information about a case regarding _a threat to me_."

In many ways, Hermione agreed with him. She would be equally enraged to be told she wasn't allowed to certain information that others had. Even as a kid, she'd snuck into the forbidden sections of the library to get books of the sort that no adult wizard or witch would ever approve for young student. But the risk to Sherlock if he learned… "It has to be this way," she said, her tone betraying more empathy than she would have liked.

Sherlock immediately picked up on it. He narrowed his eyes. Color creeping up her neck, Hermione began to twiddle her fingers in her lap.

"I am at least owed an explanation of how those pictures of me were taken in my flat without my knowledge," Sherlock said in a low voice.

For a long moment, Hermione did not answer. Then, eyes still in her lap, she said, "Invisibility cloak or Disillusionment Charm. The charm makes you blend perfectly into the background so no one can see you."

Sherlock glared at her for a second more. Then, abruptly, he returned his gaze toward the window.

Before he had met Hermione, data had always been illuminating. More information meant a clearer truth. And as Sherlock had almost no information about the wizarding world, other than fact of its existence, it had been an enormous black muddle in his mind.

Yet when one or two facts did trickle his way, Sherlock found that there was no subsequent clarity. (_Invisibility cloak?! Disillusionment Charm?!_) Indeed, it left him more discombobulated than before. It was positively infuriating. Plus there was all the extra effort of blocking out those primal signals from his amygdala every time Hermione smiled, or brightened, or smirked, or frowned (_no ignore ignore ignore_)–

All this to say, it was no surprise that Sherlock leapt out of the cab as soon as it touched the kerb. Hermione was left to pay the fare (this was so going on her expense account). By the time she had her receipt and was on the sidewalk, Sherlock was gone. Hands clenched at her sides, she marched into the hospital, following the signs down to the morgue.

There were three people that Hermione immediately noted when she pushed open the steel door to the morgue: a caucasian man with a lot of silver in his hair and a grumpy expression; a doctor, going from the white coat, with pale skin and ridiculously shiny hair; and Sherlock, crouched so closely to a morgue table he practically had his nose up against it.

Then, there were the five other people in the room. Laid out on slabs, white sheets up to their shoulders. Two women, two men, a boy.

Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.

Before the silver-haired man and the doctor could look her way, Hermione had torn her eyes away from the bodies and dashed back out into the hall.

_And the body of the man on the end had even had red hair._

Hermione pressed her forehead against the cinderblock wall. She forced herself to focus on the sensations her body felt, not the thoughts her mind was battling. The wall felt cool on her forehead. Her jeans felt stiff in the crotch. Her fingernails felt sharp, digging into the palms of her hands.

Hermione's fingers were like ice. She pressed them to her cheeks, behind her neck, willing the flush of horror to recede.

"Are you ok?" It was a woman's voice behind her. The doctor, Hermione realized.

"Of course!" Hermione said. Yet as much as she tried to will herself to do so, she could not move away from her position facing the wall.

She heard a shifting and saw the woman lean up against the wall beside her. With a small smile in her voice, the doctor said, "We get so used to it in our work that I think we forget sometimes what a shock it can be to see dead bodies."

"I've seen dead bodies," Hermione snapped. Then she paused. She willed herself to breathe in, breathe out, breathe away the defensiveness that was not at a reaction to this kind doctor but entirely due to her own history, her own past of terrors.

"The particular placement in there was just… reminiscent," Hermione finally said. With great effort, she rolled her head around, letting her body follow, until she too was leaning back against the wall.

_That woman on the slab. That boy. That man with the red hair_.

The woman, who had met many familiar with the dead in her work, suddenly realized. Her eyes widened. "You were a soldier?" She let her intonation pretend like this was a question, but it wasn't really. The forced stiffness, inadvertent trembling, the mix of flushed and clammy skin: these were the characteristics of one who had seen death, a great deal of it, perhaps even of their own friends. Someone living in a war zone. Someone fighting in that very war.

Hermione bought herself a moment to think by clearing her throat. This definitely wasn't a conversation she could have. So, she gave a sort of half nod and went with what she'd told John Watson that morning. "I work with Mycroft."

"_Oh_."

Well how bout that. Worked just as well this time around, too.

They stood there a moment more, the woman cutting her eyes over to Hermione in nervous curiosity. Then, suddenly remembering, she said, "Oh! I didn't tell you who I am. I'm Molly Hooper. Director of Pathology."

Carefully, Hermione moved just away from the wall, all her weight on her own feet. She plastered on a smile and stuck out her hand. "Hermione Granger." She offered no further information.

It did not go unnoted by Molly, though she merely smiled and took Hermione's hand. For a moment, they were only two, petite, frequently underestimated women recognizing a fellow ally in a bigger-is-better world.

Hermione let go of Molly's hand and flopped back against the wall. "Sherlock's going to think I'm an asshole."

"Oh, well. Who cares what Sherlock thinks," said Molly in a voice that indicated she cared very much about what Sherlock thought, at least of her. She gave a breathy little laugh, intending sound funny and carefree. It only made it worse.

Hermione noted all of this, but said nothing. "Unfortunately, I do. It will make my job much harder if he loathes me."

There was a bang as the morgue door opened, and the silver-haired man stormed out. "Sometimes I _loathe_ that arse!" he muttered, before catching sight of the women and catching himself.

He cleared his throat. "Sorry," he said to Hermione.

Hermione smiled. "Sherlock brings it out in the best of us." The man smirked.

"This is Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade," Molly said. "And Hermione Granger, who works with Mycroft."

Once again, this announcement got Hermione a set of sharply raised eyebrows and meaningful "Ohhh" of understanding. She bit back a smile. She was really going to have to talk to Mycroft about assuming credit for what she was sure was at least some wizard work.

Molly raised her eyebrows hesitantly at Lestrade. "He didn't say anything about your wife again, did he?"

Lestrade set his jaw. "Of course he did."

Molly worried her bottom lip. "Did he at least solve the case?"

"Of course he did! That's the problem, innit?"

"MOLLY!" Sherlock Holmes's voice resonated within the hall, despite originating on the other side of the steel door to the morgue.

Hermione rolled her eyes, all set to shoot a look of commiseration at Molly, but when she turned her way, she found the doctor had already scurried across the hall and through the door.

Hermione blinked. "Is she-?"

"Always jumping to do what he wants? Yeah," said Lestrade.

"She in love with him?"

Lestrade was eyeing the door to the morgue curiously. "You know, I don't think so. Might've once loved the _idea_ of him. But she's a romantic and he is…"

"A prick?"

"I was going to say 'not at all,' but yeah, your term works, too." Lestrade gave Hermione a tight-lipped smile and a nod. "Now if you don't mind excusing me, I have a suspect to apprehend."

Hermine was not fooled. "You're leaving me to be the one to go in and deal with him."

"Absolutely I am." Lestrade grinned back over his shoulder as he headed down the hall and out of sight.

Rolling her eyes, Hermione pushed through the door to the morgue. "Run the confirmation toxicology analysis on the males only," Sherlock was instructing Molly as Hermione walked in. He pulled on his leather gloves as he spoke, not even facing Molly, much less looking at her.

"Yes, um, okay." The calm kindness Hermione had observed in Molly Hooper was gone. Instead, her eyes were darting over his face, as if she were looking for something very specific from Sherlock.

It was easy for Hermione to guess what Molly sought. Molly was the type of woman to wear her desire on her sleeve.

Sherlock was exactly the opposite. There was too much facade about him. And though Molly Hooper might fervently wish to be dominated, when it came to the bedroom, Sherlock would probably suck at it. Hermione was no expert, but fifteen years of dating had at least given her the ability to spot a dom. And Sherlock wasn't it.

Speaking of the man in question, he was currently trying to mow her over in his attempt to exit the morgue.

"Wait!" Hermione said. In a low voice she continued, "Give me your handcuffs."

The look Sherlock gave her was contemptuous.

"Yes, I know, we'll talk about me and the dead bodies in a minute," Hermione said. "But right now, I need the handcuffs."

Never lowering the intensity of his glare, Sherlock reached inside his coat to the back of his waistband, pulled out the cuffs, and wordlessly dropped them into Hermione's waiting hand. Then without waiting a second more, he swept around her and out the door.

Molly had receded into her office. Hermione dashed up to the counter and dropped the handcuffs there. "Nice meeting you Molly!" she shouted.

"You too!" Molly said coming to the doorway. Her prior nervousness was now gone.

Hermione smiled. Molly Hooper had herself a situation. But thankfully, Hermione had a solution.

Not until she was up in the main lobby did Hermione catch up with Sherlock. He stormed through the exterior doors, not bothering to hold them open for his bodyguard behind him. Hermione stayed right next to him. The more he strode ahead, the more she aggravatingly stuck with him. A cab was out of the question, she'd probably do something ridiculous like try to jump in after him. Best to lose her in the city, then. If he got up to a roof, he could outrun her easily. Sherlock began scouring the buildings around him for fire escapes.

Hermione was literally jogging to keep up with him. "Let's talk about this," she said, grabbing his elbow.

He jerked it away. "There's nothing to talk about. I'm having Mycroft fire you. That was unacceptable."

"I can explain–"

"You expect to protect me and yet you can't even enter a morgue? Have you never seen a dead body before?" Sherlock sneered.

Hermione was starting to pant. "Only the dead bodies-of my friends-and the people-trying to kill my friends."

Sherlock had a sudden rough ache behind his sternum, as if he had swallowed a tennis ball. The pain of it left him only more determined not to look at Hermione. Unconsciously, however, his pace began to slow.

"Remus Lupin. Nymphadora Tonks. Colin Creevy. Lavender Brown. Fred Weasley." Hermione's voice cracked just slightly on the last name. She cleared her throat. "Those were the names of my friends killed in the final battle of our war. They were laid out in our Great Hall, right in a row. It just–it looked just like that." Hermione had to force herself to breathe in before she cut her eyes to Sherlock. "Fred was the red-haired one."

He was looking everywhere but at her, yet all he could see was the grim set of her mouth, the tightness at the corners of her eyes. Refusing to think on the strangeness of this, Sherlock suddenly turned, darting down an alley between two brick rowhouses.

Hermione chased after him. "If John Watson saw something that reminded him of the war in Afghanistan, would you be acting so childish?"

Sherlock whirled around. "You allowed your actions to be clouded by sentiment."

Hermione blinked. "And?"

"Sentiment is a chemical defeat found on the losing side."

Hermione bit her lips together to keep from smiling. "You are so Mycroft's brother."

If Hermione was hoping her words might defuse the situation, she was wrong. Sherlock glowered more fiercely. "I will not settle for incompetence–"

And then many things happened all at once. It was hard for Sherlock to determine which had been first. There was a bang from Hermione's wand as she whipped around to face the alley entrance. There was a flash of light tearing toward them from some unseen foe. There were spells simultaneously shouted.

"_Protego_!"

"_Crucio_!"

The jet of light that had been shooting toward Hermione and Sherlock jerked back, as if hitting an invisible shield. Sherlock's heart was hammering, a physiological reaction that irritated him. He was trained in seven types of martial arts, he had been through countless gun and knife fights, he had taken out scores of Moriarty's minions in his two years singlehandedly dismantling the international criminal empire. In moments of stress, his body did not display characteristics of _fear_.

And yet here he was, forgetting to breathe.

Just inside the mouth of the alley, Sherlock could make out the hulking shape of a wizard. Flashes of light from Hermione's wand illuminated a round, stupid face. The wizard had either very little intelligence, very little imagination, or both, for he only repeated the same curse over and over: "_Crucio! Crucio! Crucio!_"

Hermione, meanwhile, seemed almost at ease. She deflected each of his curses wordlessly, jabbing jinxes at him in between, casting at least twice as many spells as her counterpart in the same amount of time. There was no question that she was the far more skilled fighter. One corner of her mouth was tugging up. Sherlock got the distinct impression that the only reason the wizard was still on his feet was because Hermione was _enjoying_ herself.

"Lovely running into you, Goyle!" she shouted. "This is such a nice way of thanking me for that time I saved your life!"

The lumbering Goyle had not the mental capacity to cast spells and converse at the same time, but he could thrust an insult in between his curses. "Mudblood!"

And then Sherlock saw how fast Hermione could disable him. Less than a second, it turned out. Her first jinx hit him in the knees, the second in the face. The wizard screamed, clutching his face and dropping down to his knees.

With Goyle incapacitated, Hermione took advantage of lull to turn back and check on Sherlock. She'd spotted the fire escape up to the roof of the building on the left when she had first followed him into the alley. It was undoubtedly the reason he turned this way to begin with. And it would serve nicely as his escape route away from this fight.

Perhaps when she turned around she'd find him already out of sight-

He was standing not even a foot behind her, smack in the middle of the alley, mouth agape.

"What are you doing?" she screeched. "Get out of here!"

Sherlock managed to look even more incredulous. "I'm not running away!"

"You're not a wizard! You can't fight this battle!"

"I am not about to-!"

"SECTUMSEMPRA!"

Goyle had apparently not only revived but remembered one of the few other spells in his repertoire. At the first sound of his voice, Hermione had thrown herself against Sherlock, pushing them off to the side while simultaneously throwing a spell of her own over her shoulder. Her spell did its job: Goyle crumpled without a word.

Her tackle, however, was less effective. Sherlock had thrown up his arm as if to protect Hermione (_what the hell did he think he was doing?!_). The bleeding spell had sliced straight up his arm.

Almost instantly, Sherlock was slumped against the brick wall. Hermione grabbed at his shirt front to keep him upright, simultaneously pointing her wand over her shoulder. Thin silver ropes flew out from the tip, soaring to Goyle and coiling themselves around him. Her disbelief about Sherlock's stubbornness had left them both vulnerable once. She wasn't going to make that same mistake again.

"You idiot, idiot man," Hermione said as she stripped Sherlock of his Belstaff and suit jacket. Even with him half collapsing, Hermione still was several inches shorter than him. She had to get on her tiptoes to pull the articles of clothing off of his shoulders. They flumped to the ground, ignored.

The entire left sleeve of Sherlock's jewel blue shirt was wet with blood.

Tracing the tip of her wand up the sleeve, Hermione sliced the fabric open. The sleeve fell away.

Goyle's spell had sliced open the flesh of just the forearm, but judging from the copious amount of blood, the ulnar artery had been hit. Already, Sherlock was ashen-faced.

Without pausing for thought, Hermione cradled his arm in hers and began muttering spells over the wound. She drew her wand along its length, his flesh knitting itself together in its wake.

Through his confused dizziness, Sherlock watched. Despite his new knowledge of the wizarding world, for a moment Sherlock almost believed Hermione's ministrations were hallucinations. They were definitely miraculous. His own tissues, muscle, skin, blood vessel, nerves, all quietly healed, the cellular structures reformed, the organs revived.

It was the most fascinating thing he had ever seen in his life, even better than that corpse found in the sewage factory that contained hundreds of an entirely new species of maggot. It was beyond impressive. It was goddamned sexy.

Hermione repeated the spells three times before she was satisfied. Pointing her wand aside, she screwed her eyes closed and said, "Expecto Patronum!" A silvery something burst from her wand, took the shape of an otter, and turned to look at her.

"To Ron's," Hermione said, and the otter dissipated almost instantly.

Then, for the first time since his injury, Hermione looked at Sherlock's face.

He was clammy and breathing shallowly, his blue-green eyes unwaveringly bright. Adrenaline coursing through her, Hermione raced through her options. She had to get him back to 221b Baker Street, he'd be best fixed up there. How to get him there, though: obviously not brooms or via Portkey. It would have to be Side-Along Apparition. But he could barely stand on his feet. He'd be dead weight, and those situations were more likely to result in splinching.

Reaching back in her mind to when she was seventeen and studying for her Apparition Test, Hermione sought out the theory of Side-Along Apparition. Its success depended on concentration of the person Apparating and the touch points with the companion, both their number and strength. She couldn't count on Sherlock to grip her hand, he was too weak.

Multiple touch points it was.

Hermione yanked Sherlock's shirt so he took a half-step away from the wall. She pressed herself up against his torso, wrapping her arm around his waist. Her cheek was against his chest, his knees were knocking her thighs. Fiercely ignoring the fact that his crotch was up against her lower belly, she concentrated on Apparating them both home in one piece-

"Hermione." Sherlock's voice was soft.

She looked up.

Blackness was beginning to crowd the outer edges of his vision, but Sherlock saw her eyes, clear and beautiful and determined. All the clever mental partitions he had had to separate emotion from action in his mind had collapsed. Sentiment washed over logic. His mind was too a-swirl to dictate his movements; Sherlock could only act from his gut.

With his last scrap of bodily control, Sherlock leaned down and gently pressed his lips to Hermione's.

Then he passed out.


	5. Chapter 5

The first time Sherlock woke, it was to a blurry vision of a cup from Mrs. Hudson's second-best tea set under his nose. Rather than tea, however, the liquid within was gray and gloopy. Also, it was smoking.

"Come on, you have to drink it," he heard Hermione say.

He became vaguely aware that Hermione was sitting on the bed, just next to him. Her arm was propped under his shoulders, his head cradled in her hand. She had him tilted up just enough to drink from the teacup with a minimum amount of slopping down his front.

Speaking of his front, Sherlock realized was shirtless. The blue dress shirt had disappeared, though he still wore his dress trousers. How long had it been since they arrived at Baker Street, a couple minutes? Come to think of it, how exactly did they arrive at Baker Street? Sherlock had a hard time picturing Hermione manhandling him into a cab. Which only left…

"It will regenerate red blood cells and plasma." Hermione lifted the teacup closer to his mouth.

Sherlock tipped back his head to narrow his eyes at Hermione. It only made the image of her above him more vague, more ephemeral. Her outer curls were backlit from above, looking like a halo. The shadowing of her face could not hide a kind smile.

"Come now. Tastes rotten going down but I promise it will make you feel better."

Blearily, Sherlock opened his mouth to explain just exactly what Hermione could do with her promises. As if he would possibly entertain the notion of imbibing a liquid that appeared to have all the qualities of hot ash.

Hermione took advantage of the opening to touch the cup to his lower lip, tipping its contents straight into his mouth.

Only because the alternative would have been to choke and probably die (and because he preferred his death to be a little more dramatic out than that), Sherlock swallowed.

Almost instantly, he fell back asleep.

Twisting to rest the cup on the night table, Hermione turned back to take Sherlock's head in both hands. Gently, she laid it down on the pillow.

Though she knew that she should, Hermione found herself unable to remove her hands. Sherlock's head lay within them: astounding, heavy, vulnerable. She became suddenly aware of how delicate the skull really was, easily thwarted by a blunt object, a bullet, a spell.

This world-renowned brain, cradled in her hands.

In so many ways, he was brilliant. Traditional smarts, the stuff that is easily measured, whether with a test in a school or a timer at a crime scene. The stuff Hermione also had in spades. Perhaps that was why, in a not-so-deep-down place, she felt a great fondness for Sherlock.

Yet in so many ways he was dumber than donuts. How to read people. How to talk to people. How to do anything at all that related to people. It made him at times appear positively oafish. And yet, for reasons Hermione didn't understand, it also made him all the more endearing to her.

Slowly, she withdrew her hands, fingers tangling themselves out of his strangely soft hair. She brushed a stray curl off of his forehead.

Physically, he was her type. Mentally, he was her equal. Emotionally, he was positively a toddler, but Hermione wasn't looking for emotional. Emotional meant relationship. She didn't do relationships.

Exhaling, Hermione stood suddenly. Best to let him be before her mind could wander any farther. Or worse, before he could wake up and catch her mind wandering.

Quietly, Hermione padded out of the room and closed the door.

There is something to be said for the body's responses to touch. Sherlock's mind did not know she had stroked his head, but his skin did, his cranial bones, his ears. His lips knew (she just was wiping a bit of potion that clung to his upper lip, that was all, and that her fingertip traced the outline of his cupid's bow, was that was just, her mind was elsewhere, it was just her finger moving on its own, honestly). Perhaps his bones and skin savored the warmth of Hermione's touch. Perhaps his bones and skin stoked her growing presence in his subconscious.

Whatever the reason, Sherlock dreamed of Hermione. Dreams that he instantly forgot when he opened his eyes the second time, though he could remember a feeling of wrapping warmth, sinking deeply into something comforting and invigorating. But then he put his feet on the cold hardwood floor, stood, and forgot that, too.

Besides, he felt amazing.

Whatever that had been that Hermione gave him, it had cured all that ailed him and then some. He felt groundedly energized, not that adrenaline-fueled mania he usually relied on. Hermione's drink had made him feel… _well_.

The thought made him scowl.

Donning his best dressing gown, Sherlock strode out of his room looking exactly like someone deciding between picking a fight or sulking. He bypassed the kitchen, thoroughly ignoring Hermione, sitting at the kitchen table. With her was an unknown man, whom he could also ignore. Even better.

Sherlock could not help but note the gross characteristics of this unwelcome guest: tall, shaggy red hair, somewhat stupid looking, but then again, everyone was somewhat stupid looking (not Hermione (_stop that!_)).

Admittedly, that the man was holding a riding crop was interesting, and any other time Sherlock would have joyfully launched into his deductions, but now his attention would be more disdainful if it were absent altogether.

(Still. A riding crop…? Had Hermione…? )

No, stop, no more thoughts of Hermione. He had no reason to be thinking of Hermione (not that he was afraid of thoughts of her (especially thoughts of her naked (_OMIGOD ENOUGH!_))) Sherlock zeroed in on the new _Journal of Histopathology _that he had nicked from Molly's office. Flopping into his chair, he wrenched the periodical open. Perfect. Here was that ground-breaking study of the decomposition of mucous membranes. He had been looking forward to tearing apart the methodology.

But something was wrong. Despite his desire to concentrate only on the words in front of him, Sherlock could still hear Hermione and her guest conversing in the kitchen. He should be focusing to the exclusion of all other external stimuli. Something was deeply amiss. And there was only one possibility. Obviously, he had somehow ingested _Naegleria fowleri_, and the brain-eating amoeba was now burrowing its way through the neurological synpases that allowed for single-minded attention. That was the only possible, logical explanation.

"He always such an arse, then?"

"I told you what to expect, Ron, don't act so surprised."

(Sherlock was briefly baffled: what had he done this time that made him an arse? Oh right. It was what he hadn't done. Greetings. Introductions. _Tedious_.)

"He's the reason you depleted my stock of Blood Regeneration potion?"

"Yes, which I already thanked you for, and no, he is not likely to give you a thank you himself."

(Thank yous. _Dull._)

"Why do we care about this Muggle again?"

(There was that word, he hated that word.)

"He's a genius."

"Oh, he's smarter than you, then?" Hermione's response must have been some sort of look, because Ron laughed.

"He's Mycroft's brother."

"Wanker."

(Sherlock's opinion of Ron markedly improved.)

Hermione's tone was impatient. "You are not still on about that."

"It was me and Harry that took out those wizards in Yemen!"

"Yes, and you know they couldn't tell the Muggle press that. And it's not as if the Muggles were openly saying it was Mycroft's men, it was all rumor."

"Rumor he didn't deny!"

"He didn't acknowledge it either!"

"Which made them think all the more that it was him!"

(Unwillingly, Sherlock had to admire Mycroft's tactic. The best way to forever link oneself to unsubstantiated rumors was to say nothing about them at all.)

"Wait a minute…" Suspicion rose in Ron's voice. "It was _your_ idea that Mycroft not deny it or acknowledge it."

Hermione sniffed. "And it kept Muggles from finding out about it, so I think it worked very well."

Sherlock had to raise the journal a few inches so there was no way she might catch the side of his smirk.

There was a brief pause. "So you fancy Sherlock, then?"

Sherlock almost dropped the book.

"Ron Weasley! How many times do I have to tell you this is not your business!"

"I was just—"

"Since we were fourteen you have been nosing into my personal life—"

"Well for a few years in there I _was_ your personal life!"

"Yes. And then we agreed to go back to just friends. But you keep this up and we won't even be that."

"I was just teasing!"

"You've been 'just teasing' for fifteen years!"

Mind still reeling from Ron's original implication, Sherlock latched on to the chance to run some cold, hard numbers. Hermione was a couple years older than he, maybe 34, so fifteen years ago would have made her 19. That was when she had met Ron? No, she said they knew each other at 14, so 19 was when they broke off their sexual relationship, which meant it started a few years earlier.

Interesting. This goofy man was perhaps the first person with whom Hermione had had sex.

The whole notion of "giving away one's virginity" was both archaic and nonsensical to Sherlock: sex was sex, and the idea that some precious aspect of a person's being had been taken from them by their first sexual partner was ludicrous. Virginity was a social construct devised by men who viewed women as objects to be had and themselves as ones to be having.

Still. _Ron_—_?_

Sherlock clutched the journal tightly, shutting down the instinct to drop it into his lap and stare at the befuddling red-headed man.

"Is that my _Journal of Histopathology_?"

Blinking, Sherlock looked up. Molly Hooper, of all people, was standing in the doorway to the landing, having just ascending the stairs from the front door.

"What are you doing here?" Sherlock said.

Molly huffed. "Honestly, you're so good with disguises, couldn't you pretend for once to be disguised as someone with manners?"

This got a laugh from Hermione, who'd left her spot at the kitchen table to walk around to the sitting room. She grinned at Molly. "Thanks for coming by."

"Oh! It was no problem," she said, waving a hand casually. Sherlock was startled to see it held his handcuffs. Likely the handcuffs Hermione had taken from him. She had left them at the morgue, why would she leave them at the morgue, unless—

"Molly, this is my friend Ron," Hermione said, stepping back to allow Ron into the conversation. "Ron, this is Molly."

Ron looked at Molly. Molly looked at Ron. And to the two of them, the rest of the world fell away.

Molly gazed, open-mouthed, at the man gripping the riding crop. He towered over her, lean yet muscled. His face appeared friendly under that floppy fringe of hair, but his gaze was unrepentant.

She was meek, weak, perhaps all the words ending in "eek," a sound Ron knew he could coax from her lips, one of many sounds, as she lay, her hands secured with the handcuffs she carried, him armed with the whip at his side—

"Nice to meet you!" Molly squeaked.

Ron grinned, his open expression betrayed by the feral glint in his eye.

"Oh, Molly! I found the ones I was looking for," Hermione said, pulling another set of Sherlock's handcuffs from off of a coat hook. She nodded at the pair in Molly's hands. "So those weren't mine, after all. I'm sorry you came all the way down here."

Sherlock sat up straight. Those were _his_ handcuffs Molly had in her hands, what was Hermione letting her have them for? Forget the fact that he could always steal more from Donovan, this wasn't up to her—!

Though she never quite turned his way, Hermione shifted. Though she never quite looked at him, her head tilted. Her jaw muscles went tight. Even with her eyes ahead, it was clear Hermione's look was meant for Sherlock. It could have been roughly interpreted as _Don't. Even. Start._

"It—it was no problem," Molly breathed, unable to look away from Ron.

Hermione, it must be said, was doing a heroic job of playing it cool (aside from her prior nonverbal dig at him). If it had been John, Sherlock thought, the newly introduced couple would have had to duck for shelter from all the waggling eyebrows and leering grins.

"Do you mind doing me a favor?" Hermione continued saying to Molly, her expression benign. "Ron's not familiar with this area, would you show him where the Baker Street Station is?"

"I—yes." Molly smoothed back a wisp of hair that had fallen around her face. "Yes."

The corner's of Ron's mouth tipped up. "Thanks."

Molly blushed furiously.

Ron's smile widened.

Though wanting to point out to them both that they were fooling no one with their blatant displays of sexual desire, Sherlock settled for an uncharitable eyeroll. And another one when Hermione escorted them down to the front door. And another one when she returned and plopped herself down in the chair across from him.

Hermione only caught the last of them. "What?"

Sherlock huffed. "Don't pretend you aren't superbly pleased with yourself right now."

"Superbly…?"

"Arranging that… _sexual partnering_."

Hermione looked suspiciously like she was holding back a smile. "I introduced them to each other. Any sexual partnering is going to have to be up to the two of them."

"Please. You knew well from your brief interaction that Molly desired to be sexually dominated, and as for your wizard friend, it is clear that he is youngest child, prone to hand-me-downs and faint attentions, and thus would find power plays in the bedroom to be both stimulating and arousing."

"Second youngest," Hermione corrected. "Though it's true he's youngest of the sons."

Sherlock pressed his lips together. _There was always something._ Irritably, he pushed on: "And, you armed them with props! Could you have been any more heavy-handed?"

Hermione held up a dissenting finger, her expression serious. "No. If just she had the handcuffs or he had the whip, that would have been heavy-handed. But both of them together?" Her smile was self-delighted. "That was sheer finesse."

From the moment Sherlock had exited his bedroom, he had sought to needle Hermione, and from the moment she was aware of his presence, she had laughed at his attempts. Well, no more. Sherlock went in for the kill. "You often finesse the pleasure of a_ former sexual partner?_"

For a brief second, Hermione's looked almost stung. Sherlock was surprised to realize he found absolutely no enjoyment in her reaction.

Quickly, however, she covered it with a smirk. "I knew you were eavesdropping."

Sherlock raised his eyebrows. "Sitting in my own chair in my own flat is now considered _eavesdropping_?"

"It is if you're pretending to be reading."

He snorted. "I wasn't pretending at all. The pages would have been moving much faster if I were."

To Sherlock's credit, he was able to keep up his snooty look for one entire second. Then he caught Hermione grinning widely at him. The corner his mouth threatened to twitch. Covering it will an exuberant sigh, he continued. "You arranged that bit of match-making for the benefit of your ex, Ron."

"He's my friend."

"Fine. For the benefit of your _friend_, Ron."

"No."

Sherlock mostly contained his surprise. "For the benefit of Molly?"

"No. Not that she isn't a dear, and sweet, and deserving of all things naughty, especially after years of fawning over you."

As always, the mention of Molly's crush on him gave Sherlock a twinge of discomfort. He slumped back and grumped. "Were I able to assist her in directing her feelings elsewhere, I would."

"Exactly. _That's _why I did it."

He stiffened. "What?"

Hermione shrugged. "It was clear you didn't return her feelings. A problem for her, of course, but for you, too. She is your friend. Her crush on you limited her options, but it also meant you couldn't go sleeping around, either. It might irreparably hurt her feelings, and your friendship."

Sherlock didn't know what was more unfathomable, the idea of his promiscuity or him caring that he might hurt someone's feelings. "There was never any question of me 'sleeping around!'"

Hermione waved a hand dismissively. "Sleeping monogamously, then, whatever you prefer." She eyed him. "Though if that's the case, I am a bit surprised. I wouldn't have guessed you for the relationship type."

"I do _not_ do relationships."

Hermione nodded. "Me neither."

Sherlock, who had anticipated another argument, opened his mouth, ready to retort. Then her words registered. He closed it.

Hermione leaned back into the chair across from him, gazing at the ceiling. "So many expectations."

Sherlock blinked. "Indeed."

"You date a couple of months and then suddenly there's fussing about moving in and then getting married and then having babies and then giving up your entire self in order to fit into the person he assumes you are supposed to be."

Instinctively, Hermione tensed, waiting for him to characterize her as "cute" or "sweet" or "not really knowing what she wanted, really, c'mon Hermione." But Sherlock let her down. He simply nodded, thoughtfully. "Why even bother."

"Precisely. Best to just keep it simple and stick with no-strings sex."

Sherlock became suddenly very re-engrossed in _Journal of Histopathology_.

Hermione bit her upper lip. She wasn't sure if she was biting back nervousness or a smile. "I haven't made you uncomfortable? Talking about sex?"

"Sex doesn't make me uncomfortable." He really sounded rather convincing, he thought. And why not? Hadn't he been in this position before, with The Woman? Although Hermione was not cold or calculating. She was grounded, brave, more beautiful, far more clever—

Frantically, Sherlock shut down that line of thought, but his heart had already begun to hammer. He forced his face to remain dispassionate. "Considering the predominant role of sex as a motive in causing others bodily harm I would be a poor consulting detective if it did."

Hermione nodded. "Also a bad lover."

Slowly, Sherlock swiveled his head away from the periodical until his blue-green eyes were boring into her hazel ones.

To her credit, Hermione blushed. "Oh! I wasn't implying you were a bad lover. Just saying a person uncomfortable with sex would be."

Slightly mollified, Sherlock leaned his head back against his chair. The journal lay forgotten on his lap. "It _would_ be a hindrance." Then, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Though if the discomfort were compartmentalized to one's own body, leaving the capability of bringing another to orgasm, then the question of adequacy could be overruled-—ha!"

Sherlock suddenly leapt out of his chair. The journal went flying as he bounded toward his desk, scooping up his phone and texting furiously.

Hermione shifted her gaze from Sherlock, to the empty chair, to Sherlock again. "Hold on—"

"Sex, yes, that's the motive in the mother abbess murder. Strict disciplinarian, deeply repressed notions of sexual intercourse, also very clearly a virgin herself."

"And—"

"And it's _not_ that she found someone in a compromising position who subsequently murdered her to keep it quiet, as Anderson so willfully believed. No, it was the abbess herself bringing nuns to orgasm. Pelvic massage, Victorian technique to cure the women of so-called 'hysteria.' A novice thought she was the only one, found out about others, murdered the abbess out of jealousy. It was the one with recently replaced heel on her shoe..." Sherlock tapped the last word on his phone and pressed 'send.' "Solved."

Hermione was staring at him. He had just said something so basic, and yet also so extraordinary, that she wasn't sure if anyone had ever vocalized it before.

Sherlock glanced at her expression. "Though he no longer lives here, John provides adequate commentary on my ability to solve a case. Feel no obligation to contribute."

"I wasn't going to say anything about the case."

He'd never admit it to a soul, but for a brief moment, Sherlock was confused.

Hermione took a small step closer to him. She angled her head a tiny bit, her eyes scanning his face. "You said, if someone made another person cum, that settled the question of adequacy."

Sherlock blinked. An odd pressure had suddenly appeared behind his breastbone. Somehow, the oxygen levels in the room appeared to have dropped precipitously. How on earth had that happened? "Not precisely in those words, but... yes."

"A good lover leaves their partner… satisfied."

Sherlock could feel the blood rushing through his veins. Capillaries near the epidermis swelled, flooding his skin with color. "Obviously."

Never taking her eyes off of his, Hermione shook her head slowly. "Many people would not find it obvious."

Sherlock pffed. "Many people are likely rubbish lovers." He had hoped an off-the-cuff remark might still the mad rush of blood toward his groin.

His hopes were for naught.

"Many. Not all." Hermione's voice had grown husky.

A corner of Sherlock's mouth tipped up at that. "No."

She was now standing so close to him she had to tip her head up to meet his gaze. Their eyes swept over each other. All the signs of arousal were there: flushed lips, dilated pupils, pulsing skin over the carotid artery. They were adults. They were consenting. They were without reason to hesitate.

(Except god she didn't know, he was a Muggle, not that that was a problem, obviously she was Muggle-born herself, but she was meant to be protecting him, plus he was a stubborn arse and emotionally stunted and maybe that meant he'd expect even more from her, maybe not, ack but she didn't know, she hated not knowing-)

(And god he had no idea, he had said he didn't do this sort of thing, but when he said that had he meant just relationships or sex all together, he couldn't remember, good god how could he not remember, and she'd said the thing about not wanting relationships, though maybe she really did, but why would she lie, he just didn't know, he hated not knowing-)

For a moment, there was only stillness. Then, Sherlock's head dipped toward hers. Hermione's lips parted.

And then, her phone began to ring.

He stood up straight. She stepped back, glancing her phones. She answered the call.

"Mycroft."

Sherlock's eyes widened.

With her eyes on Sherlock, Hermione hmmed several times into the speaker. Then she said, "Ok" and hung up.

"And what did my darling brother have to say?" Sherlock asked.

"Goyle's ready to talk. I have to be there, and also give my side for the record. You're to stay here. The magical protections around the house should keep you safe, as long as you don't go outside."

Sherlock's eyes darted all around her face, though his own expression was still. "You know I am completely ignoring Mycroft's instruction and going with you anyway."

Hermione turned toward the door, but not before Sherlock saw one corner of her mouth tip up. "I was hoping you'd say that."


	6. Chapter 6

Hermione began texting before they were even out the door. By the time Sherlock had hailed a cab, her phone was pinging with a reply. She gave the address in the message to the cabbie.

"Where are we going?" Sherlock asked.

He saw Hermione again surreptitiously point her wand toward the driver, again cast the spell that would keep their conversation secret. "Undisclosed location."

Sherlock arched an eyebrow. "New Scotland Yard isn't good enough for wizards?"

"New Scotland Yard isn't secure enough for wizards. Mostly because we can't go around casting spells to subdue criminals without broadcasting our existence to every copper in the place."

"You have your own jail, then."

"Yes. Azkaban. We're not going there. It's on an island in the middle of the sea. Dreadful spot. And, incidentally, terrible spot to hold someone arrested but not convicted. What if they're innocent? No, criminals only go there after trial."

Sherlock's other eyebrow joined his first. "Wizards have due process?"

She scowled. "They didn't. Until I made them."

"You—"

Hermione nodded curtly. "First job out of school with the Ministry, getting them to build a holding cell in the building, setting up timelines for how long a person can be held without being charged. And, most importantly, making the laws the same for humans and part-humans. Our world is rampant with discrimination against goblins, werewolves, centaurs, you name it."

It was happening with alarming frequency that the more Hermione explained, the more Sherlock felt wildly off balance. So many things she had just blithely mentioned were going to require serious contemplation, preferably while holding a glass of scotch. For now, however, Sherlock went with the least uncomprehendable one. "You have a Ministry."

"Of course we have a Ministry. Ministry of Magic. That's where I got them to build a holding cell."

Being the brother of Mycroft Holmes had made Sherlock well aware of secret branches of government. But a Ministry of Magic? The very idea required a new definition of the word "fascinating." What would it be that they did? Investigate and apprehend criminals, of course. And there must be regulations regarding the spells and potions. Not to mention all the nonsense about keeping themselves secret from the vast majority of humanity.

An entire secret government with an entire secret agenda, and he was on his way to it. Oh this was more exciting than serial killers. He had already begun to plan how to give them all the slip once inside the building. No way would he limit his tour of the Ministry to just the ridiculous Goyle in his holding cell. Perhaps he could snag from somewhere one of those Invisibility Cloaks Hermione had mentioned—

"We're not going to the Ministry of Magic," Hermione said, as if reading his mind.

It was like she had cancelled Christmas. "_Why_?"

"You."

The look Sherlock gave her could have sliced through stone. Hermione merely shrugged. "You're not even supposed to know about us anyway, seeing as you're a—"

"DON'T. SAY. IT."

Hermione's lips twitched, but she obediently swallowed back the word "Muggle." "Seeing as you are non-magical. They are being very strict in regards to your 'need to know' status."

Sulking, Sherlock flumped back into his seat. "What about Goyle?"

"We're still seeing him. They're just transferring him to a safe house you can enter."

Sherlock had nothing to say to this, so he just huffed loudly.

The street where the cab stopped was in a residential area of Islington gone slightly to seed. As Hermione paid (also going on her expense account), Sherlock stepped out, taking in the gray rowhouses in front of them. At one point, they were likely quite stately, even posh. Now, however, the stone facade was cracked in several places, and the wooden fence in bad need of replacing. Not to mention whoever had built the structure couldn't count. The six units were numbered 10, 11, 13, 14, 15. Even the idiot Anderson knew what number came after eleven.

Hermione stepped beside him as the cab drove off. "12 Grimmauld Place."

Sherlock opened his mouth to point out that clearly there was no 12 Grimmauld place when his understanding of the world was entirely upended (again). In front of him, an entirely new rowhouse was suddenly appearing. It was if it had been squished to nothingness between numbers 11 and 13 but was now reinflating, shunting the other units aside. Despite lights on in each of the other units, none of the residents appeared to perceive their homes being shoved aside for a secret magical safe house.

But he sure as hell did.

"Come on," Hermione said, walking up to the newly visible front door. As she held the door open for Sherlock she continued, "This house belongs to my friend Harry now, but for generations was the home of an old wizarding family, the Blacks. They were a bit... grim."

Hermione's term could have just as well described the entry hall into which they had just walked. A single ensconced candle at the far end provided the only light. Not that there was much to see. The hall was furnitureless, walls bare but for a silver and green patterned wallpaper that would be appropriate for a wicked witch's house. Which, Sherlock realized, could literally be what this place was.

"Took ages to strip it into something serviceable to the Ministry." Hermione pointed to the far wall. "Used to be a picture here of a witch that screamed insults at you."

Ha! He was right.

They climbed up a grand staircase to the main room of the house. Bare walls, bare floor, just as unwelcoming.

Bound to a straight-backed wooden chair in the center of the room was Goyle, unconscious. Undoubtedly, when the chair was designed, it was constructed to withhold even large people of great weight. The engineer, however, had not taken into account the existence of a Goyle. The legs on the thing looked ready to buckle.

Standing over the prisoner, wand out, was Oliver Wood. And waiting just at the top of the stairs, looking deeply put out, was Mycroft Holmes.

He focused his contempt on Hermione. "You were supposed to make him stay at Baker Street."

She slapped on a contrite look. "Oops."

Sherlock's lips twitched.

Mycroft inhaled in exasperation. Without further comment, he turned toward the prisoner and his guard in the center of the room. Lips pursed, he gave a curt nod to Oliver.

Orders given, Oliver pointed his wand at Goyle and said, "_Enervate_."

Lumberingly, Goyle woke. He lifted his head, took in the contents of the room, and blinked a couple times. It was difficult to discern whether he looked that surly because of his current surroundings or because he just always looked that way.

Oliver's voice was authoritative. "You understand why you are here?"

Goyle stayed silent. It was then that Sherlock realized Goyle was without his wand, a fact that rendered him nearly impotent. Not, that it make him talk. And not that that was at all irksome. No indeed, it was the sullen ones who were interesting, offering much more to deduce than the blabber mouths, oh there was no way Mycroft could have induced him to miss this—

"You have been arrested for attacking two people in broad daylight at 15:00 earlier today using Dark curses, including the Cruciatus Curse. One of your intended victims was a member of the Golden Trio—"

Sherlock frowned. What the hell was the Golden Trio? Obviously, Oliver wasn't talking about him. He turned his head sharply toward Hermione. She continued to look ahead, face set, but her cheeks were magnificently red.

"—and the other was a Muggle—"

(That word should be stripped from the English language.)

"Which means you not only face charges of assault and use of an illegal curse, but this will be tried as a Muggle crime and violation of the Statute of Secrecy."

Oliver paused. Goyle sat. He looked about as cooperative as a bag of rocks.

"Let's begin the interrogation." Oliver withdrew a small glass vial from his jacket. The liquid it contained was clear.

"That's Veriteserum," Hermione said in a low voice to Sherlock. "A potion that will make him tell the truth. He has no choice but to tell us what he knows.

Sherlock was appalled. "Where's the fun in that?"

Hermione snorted. Mycroft turned to shoot them a dirty look as Oliver began the inquisition.

"Please state your name."

His expression was sullen, but he responded. "Gregory Goyle."

Oliver pointed at Hermione and Sherlock. "Did you attack these two individuals off of Limeburner Lane this afternoon?"

"Yes."

"Why."

"Paid."

"Who paid you."

"Dunno."

"How were you hired for this job."

Goyle shifted in his chair. "Witch came and sat next to me at Hog's Head Inn. Put a sack of gold on the table, said she had a job. Said 'ok.'"

"What did she look like?"

"Hooded robe, came down low. Couldn' see nuthin of her face."

"What was her voice like?"

"Whisper."

Oliver pressed his lips together. "So, an unknown woman, whose face you could not see and who was disguising her voice, said she'd give you a sack of gold for a job, and you didn't find this at all suspicious?"

"Sus— sus-i-shus" It was clear Goyle was unfamiliar with the word, much less its meaning. In his defense, however, it was more than one syllable.

"Didn't you think this person intended to do harm?"

Goyle blinked stupidly. "Yeah."

Oliver held back an eyeroll. Sherlock did not. "What did I tell you?" he said to Hermione.

She sighed, but nodded. "You're right. This is boring."

Oliver was now questioning Goyle about how he received his instructions for the job. Nothing was written down. The hooded stranger had just given Goyle a picture of Hermione cut out from the newspaper, and a photograph of Sherlock in his kitchen.

"This?" Oliver asked, holding up the wizard picture of Sherlock at his microscope.

"Yeah."

Anger leapt low in Sherlock's gut at the reminder of the wizard surveillance. At least the cameras Mycroft occasionally had hidden in his flat produce grainy images of just a slice of any one room. And Sherlock routinely searched for and chucked them out. He had no way to protect himself from this. The wizard photos were not only a reminder of the violation of his home, but of Sherlock's sickening inability to combat it.

"I take it from the lack of written instructions that you still don't know how to read, Goyle?" Hermione snapped. She was leaning forward, ready to attack, the hand gripping her wand tense at her side.

With a jolt, Sherlock remembered that though he was out of his league, Hermione was not. He was surprised to feel an immense gratitude that she was on his side.

He was even more surprised to realize it was not the first time he felt this way.

"Ms. Granger. Must we ask you to leave for the remainder of this interrogation?" Contempt flickered in Mycroft's eyes.

"Oh shut up Mycroft," Hermione said.

Were he the type of person to feel these things, which he decidedly wasn't, Sherlock would have said his heart suddenly grew three sizes bigger.

"And don't even pretend you could make me leave. Oliver, maybe. But I could have you vomiting slugs before you even took a step toward me."

Make that four sizes.

Hermione snapped her gaze back to Goyle. "What else."

He shifted again on his too-small chair. "Was supposed to knock you unconscious, tie you up. Shoot sparks in the air. Then leave."

"Who would come to get Hermione and Sherlock?"

"Dunno."

"Why did this person want them?"

"Dunno."

Exhaling loudly, Oliver crossed his arms and stood back from Goyle. "I don't know that we're going to get any more information from him."

Sherlock snorted. Four heads swivelled his way. "Perhaps not from what he says, no. But from him?" He strode over to the trapped wizard and began patting him down.

"Oi!" Oliver said. "We already did that."

"And?"

Oliver shot Mycroft a look that roughly said, _Your brother is a pill and do I have to tell him?_ Mycroft's look in return said _I absolutely agree with you and yes you do._

"Besides his wand, all he had on him was a leather money bag containing one knut. Not enough to be a payment on a hit." Oliver cut his eyes to Goyle. "Unless you're even stupider than we thought."

"No, no," Sherlock said, now examining Goyle's knees. "The money's gone already. Inveterate gambler. Don't you see the callouses on his outer thumbs? From shuffling cards." He stood and looked at the trussed up wizard. "Let me guess, as soon as you left with your money you went straight to the man you owed. After you paid your debt, he invited you to stay a while, during which he proceeded to win away the rest of your payment and then some."

Goyle looked everywhere but at the detective. "Yeah."

"A shame, because you had needed new shoes." All eyes shot over toward Goyle's shoes, so scuffed and worn that at the toe, the soles had become separated from the upper leather.

Sherlock crouched and swiftly removed Goyle's left shoe. "In fact, the shoelace had broken on this shoe just as you arrived to pay your debts, which is why you did not immediately go to purchase a new shoelace, but instead replaced it with this leather thong."

Pulling on a pair of rubber gloves procured from his coat pocket, Sherlock began to unlace the strap from the shoe. With smug triumph, he held it out between the tip of his thumb and forefinger. "Otherwise known as the drawstring to the money bag you were given by the hooded witch."

Oliver's mouth opened and closed a few times, but nothing came out.

"Am I correct?" Sherlock asked. He knew he was correct.

"Yeah."

Sherlock quirked an eyebrow at Mycroft. "Good thing I wasn't supposed to come."

Mycroft responded with a slow clap. "And now, dear brother, I suppose you believe you can squirrel away this evidence so that you yourself can identify residues remaining on the lace."

"No."

Mycroft let slip a smidge of surprise.

"Hermione will. She obviously has the superior knowledge of potions, of which there may be trace amount, and any spells that may have been performed on the bag."

With great control, Hermione resisted laughing at Mycroft. True, one corner of her mouth quirked, but she kept her eyes focused on Sherlock. "Happy to assist."

Sherlock, meanwhile, had no problem with a little Mycroft-directed ridicule. With a smirk at his brother, he strode toward Hermione, extending a rubber-gloved hand. He opened his fingers; the strap lay across his palm. "An initial analysis?"

Still suppressing a smile, Hermione hovered the tip of the wand just above the lace. With slow precision, she drew it along the length of the leather strip. "Signs of Untraceable Jinx, presumably to prevent anyone from following the money back to him."

"Prudent of him. And?"

"Untrackable Charm. Same reason. Organic Repellant." She looked at Sherlock. "You'll find no evidence on the wand of specific flora grown in only certain places."

It was if she were very familiar with his methods. An interesting thought, but one that would have to be considered later. "Is that all?"

In response, Hermione very carefully leaned over took a deep sniff.

Sherlock raised his eyebrows.

Her tone was musing. "Of course smell of Goyle, rubber from your gloves, but there's something else…" She leaned so closely that the tip of her nose nearly touched the leather. Then, unexpectedly, she stood back, blushing furiously.

Sherlock's eyebrows v'ed. "What?"

Hermione shook her head, eyes wide. "I…" She pressed her lips together and eyes closed, composing herself. Then, recomposed, she leaned over again, sniffed delicately. "Oh. _Oh_." Hermione straightened up, very deliberately stepping back away from the evidence and the man who held it.

"Amortentia," Hermione said. Oliver's eyes widened as Sherlock frowned. "Who ever handled this bag of money had been given a love potion."

"A love potion! Ha!" Sherlock's face was alight with excitement. "C_lever!_"

Hermione blinked several times. Wide-eyed, she looked at Mycroft. Sherlock's elder brother gave a long-suffering sigh. "Were John Watson here," he said to Sherlock, "he would likely remind you that an interrogation is not the place to delight in criminal intellect."

Sherlock waved a hand dismissively. "Considering this Goyle is not the one with the intellect, I am the one who is the potential victim, and John Watson is not, in fact, present, you point is entirely moot."

"No, it's not," said Hermione, looking distinctly unimpressed.

Sherlock hesitated. "It's not?"

"No."

"Oh."

Shrewdly, Mycroft glanced from Sherlock to Hermione and back to Sherlock again. "Perhaps Dr. Watson has cause to be concerned for his position."

Sherlock looked as though Mycroft had just suggested chickens were pink. "What the hell are you talking about? John's surgery has no intention of letting him go."

Missing Mycroft's arched eyebrow and Hermione's pink ears, Sherlock plowed on with his deductions. "Tremendous precautions to make the leather untrackable, yet traces of a love potion? The spells were performed by the true mastermind behind the assault, one who tricked this hooded witch into falling in love and thus doing whatever he wanted her too. Someone without a criminal record, who'd never be suspected of having a criminal record. Hermione, how long does this love potion last?"

"Twenty-four hours, less if the drinker is overweight, more if the giver is particularly attractive."

"And then?"

Hermione shrugged. "Like any other bad break-up. Lots of mooning about."

Sherlock's mind was whirring. "We were attacked mid-afternoon, so leaving time for Goyle to idiotically lose all the money he'd likely make in a year, the potion was probably administered with lunch."

Whipping a plastic evidence bag out of his coat pocket, Sherlock snapped it open and deposited in the strap. Sealing it closed, he shoved the bag into his coat pocket and stripped the rubber gloves from his hands.

"Hermione and I shall continue our analysis of the evidence at Baker Street," Sherlock said, dropping the disposable gloves and pulling on his own black leather ones. "Text me tomorrow when you've identified the witch."

Oliver, initially appalled by the blatant removal of evidence, found himself even more open-mouthed at this presumption of a captured criminal. "How're we expected to do that?" he asked.

Already halfway toward the exit, Sherlock paused. Oh-so-slowly, he turned back toward the wizard, his face a mix of pity and exasperation. He cut his eyes toward Mycroft. "Dear god, brother, the idiots you deal with."

Oliver's face lit up with fury, but it was Hermione who was first to reply.

"Oh shut up, Sherlock," she said calmly. She turned to Oliver. "He thinks everyone's an idiot, even his best friend. Don't take it personally."

Sherlock intended to shoot Hermione a look, but before he had the chance Oliver muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "...doesn't think you're an idiot." Everyone in the room implicitly agreed to ignore this, although Hermione's cheeks suffused with color. She instead carried on as if she hadn't heard, although her voice was a touch louder than before:

"At about noon tomorrow, a witch will suddenly become very heartbroken, and thus frequent the places people go when dumped," Hermione explained.

"Merely a matter of you stationing men at whatever drinking establishments are most accommodating to and frequented by witches," Sherlock said, already back at the top of the stairs. "You _can_ manage that, can't you?" Without waiting for a reply, he bounded down the stairs.

Hermione cut her eyes toward Oliver. Her eyes were apologetic, but all she said was. "Probably you only need to go to Fortescue's."

Oliver smirked, and even Mycroft had to swallow a smile. He managed it only by looking sternly at Hermione, saying, "Go. Sherlock won't wait for you. As John Watson can attest, having been abandoned at crimes scenes multiple times."

She pressed her lips together, but it could not hide her grin. But before Hermione could mention the convenience of Apparition in catching up to Muggles, a shout came up from the floor below.

"Let's go, Hermione!"

Mycroft's eyes became near-perfect circles. Oliver rocked back on his heels in glee. And before either of them could point out the obvious fact that Sherlock was indeed waiting for her, Hermione raced out of their sight, down the stairs and out the door to where Sherlock was holding open the door of a cab.

She climbed in, _Muffliato_-ing the cabbie as if it were second nature. And good thing, because as soon as Sherlock sat down next to her, he launched into the similarities between the love potion and the poison at from his case in Baskerville, which was regaled to her in full detail. It appeared that when pleased with himself, Sherlock got chatty.

Not too unpleased with herself (how many times exactly had it looked like Mycroft might combust?), Hermione sat back in the seat, content to listen. Their joint geniality lasted a good few minutes. Then Sherlock said,

"Fortescue's is a new establishment, then."

Hermione's left eye squinted. "What?"

"The rise in pubs specifically catering to a female clientele, though potentially lucrative if properly marketed, has been slow to gain traction in the rest of London, and as the population of witches is even smaller than that of non-magical women, it merely follows that this is a recent business experiment."

Hermione shook her head. "It's been round for ages."

Sherlock frowned.

"Also, it's not a pub."

His expression scrunched even more.

Biting back a grin, Hermione explained. "It's an ice cream parlour."

Sherlock was silent the rest of the way home.


	7. Chapter 7

In many ways, Sherlock's kitchen looked just mad-science-y as it had when John Watson had stopped by a few days prior. It was just as crammed with experiments in various states of progression, just as unfit as a place for food preparation as ever.

The difference, of course, was the addition of a few less orthodox materials. Next to the plastic tub of sodium carbonate were a vials of armadillo bile and puffer-fish blood. Seven different type of eyes (beetle, spider, doxy, ashwinder, newt, eels, runespoor) were in a carefully compartmentalized tray beside dried snakeweed and chopped ginger root. And on the kitchen table itself, a few feet down from the digital compound microscope, was an iron cauldron.

Sherlock and Hermione were silently stationed beside each of their respective equipment preferences. They wore matching safety goggles, Hermione having borrowed Sherlock's second pair ("Oh, how practical! Wizards are far too incautious compared to Mug"—a very dirty look from Sherlock—"compared to non-magical people."), and identical scowls of concentration.

Suddenly, Hermione stepped back. "Ok," she said. "That's as far as I can get without boomslang skin. I'll have to finish this tomorrow."

She rolled back her stiff shoulders a couple of times as she fished her cell phone from her pocket, thumbing off a quick text. Then, linking her hands behind her back, she stretched, arching her back. The sides of her jacket slipped back, her stretchy tee taut across small breasts.

To Sherlock, physiology was just another measurable science. The body's responses to various stimuli could be demonstrably quantitated, and thus to pretend that such responses were not occurring was ludicrous. He would be a shoddy detective indeed if he were at all inclined to dismiss biological evidence, simply because he wished it not to be so. That philosophy extended to his own body.

Still. The rate at which his heart was now hammering was bordering on unbelievable.

"Something up?" Hermione asked.

Diversion, he needed a diversion, now. "Have you ever noticed something in your Mind Palace—"

"—Mind Library."

He ignored the interruption. "—That's...not… quite right?" Oh could he be any more insipid in saying what he meant. Though the point of his Mind Palace problem was that he wasn't even sure a problem existed, much less what it was, rendering it impossible for him to find the language to begin to describe his unease.

Hermione's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. "What do you mean?"

Sherlock ran his hands over his hair, making the curls sproing back in all directions. "Obviously you have all the information in your head sorted in certain organizational apparatuses, each in a room within the larger architectural structure. When you need to recall a fact, you proceed to the appropriate place and retrieve the specificity of information with ease."

"Yes, exactly."

"And with this method, nothing learned can be forgotten unless purposefully deleted."

Hermione squinched her right eye. "Deleted?"

Now it was Sherlock's turn to squinch at her. "Obviously. When the volume of data within the mind is at such astronomical levels, it is imperative to be strategic about storage."

Her head tilted. Her face said, _Huh?_

Sherlock huffed, exasperated at this unusual lack of immediate understanding from Hermione. "The mind is a hard drive, it only makes sense to put things in there that are useful. Not all sorts of rubbish."

Hermione was still squinty with confusion. "So just put the rubbish in the basement."

"I can't put rubbish in the basement, that's where childhood memories are stored. I admit it may be unlikely to encounter an eight-year-old murderer, but should such a case arise, it would afford me a perfect understanding of a boy's mindset."

"So build a sub-basement. That's the beauty of a Mind Library, you just create another…" Hermione's eyes suddenly widened. "Wait a minute. Did you say hard drive?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Let me guess. You don't have a hard drive, in the Mind Library but instead rows and rows of card catalogs—"

"Of course I don't have a hard drive. Hard drives have limited capacity. There's only so much memory you can store on a hard drive!"

Sherlock opened his mouth to argue before he actually heard her words. Then they sunk in. His mouth just sort of hung there.

"Sherlock…!" As if scandalized, Hermione's hand flew to her mouth. It didn't do much to hide her growing grin. "Are you saying your memory is… insufficient?" she teased.

Sherlock sat stiffly. "Insufficiency is inherent to the human form. There is only so much food the stomach can digest at once, so much air the lungs can hold, so many days the body exists before any variety of physiological break-downs result in death."

"You must be a hoot at parties."

"The point is," Sherlock said, teeth gritted, "Since the day of the arrest of the Moriarty scare culprit—"

"Mundungus Fletcher," Hermione interrupted.

Sherlock paused. "What the hell kind of name is that?"

"A wizard name. And no, he didn't do it. It's just what was leaked to the Muggle press while we work on the true culprit."

"Ha! I knew it!" Sherlock said. "Lestrade expected me to believe that preposterous story. This is exactly it, this proves that the memory of that day in my Mind Palace has been…"

Sherlock didn't so much trail off as refuse to give voice to the absurdity. He almost wanted to say that the memory had been tampered with. Certainly, memories were malleable, and through combinations of hypnosis plus positive and negative reinforcement, people had been prepared to stake their life on a memory that could be proven patently wrong.

He had no such certainty. Just a hazy, white sensation. A feeling that what he needed to see lay just outside his line of vision.

Sherlock sat back in his chair, hands steepling under his chin. Uninsulted, Hermione took this as her cue to cease waiting for him to finish his sentence. He might not resurface from the depths of his mind for hours.

Crossing to the kitchen counter, she began gathering up the remains of the curry that had been delivered a few hours ago. It wasn't until she was leaving the kitchen, plastic bag of food cartons in hand, that she realized he wasn't deep in thought after all.

"I did not take you to be the type to hoard food," Sherlock suddenly said.

She turned back, her confusion quickly replaced with surprised understanding. "Oh, did you want some? I thought you weren't hungry."

He ignored the implication that he would acknowledge so base a human sensation as hunger. "There is perfectly serviceable food storage capacity here in the kitchen," he said, nodding at the refrigerator.

Hermione looked at it too, though with far less satisfaction. "I am not storing my food next to body parts."

"It would be no more unhygienic than allowing leftovers to begin to mold at room temperature in your bedroom."

She shot him a coy smile, eyes bright. "Are you indicating concern for my gestational wellbeing? And people say you don't care."

He stiffened slightly. "I merely do not wish my protection to be compromised by an attack of c_lostridium perfringens."_

"Me neither. That's why I'll use a Refrigeration Charm." She smiled, managing to keep it pleased-in-general and not pleased-with-herself. "I'll probably just turn in. 'Night!" And with that she turned on her heel and went up the stairs to her bedroom.

Sherlock sat back from his microscope, listening to her ascending footsteps. He wondered idly whether she'd actually follow through on a charm intended to knock him back down the stairs if he tried to get in her room. Not that it mattered. Why would he want to be in her room? Her books were unreadable and he wasn't interested in leftover curry. What else was there?

(_Only answers to the question of how soft her skin was under that shirt, how her breast would feel under his palm, how exactly her nipple would pebble as he ran the flat of his tongue—_)

Flustered, Sherlock stood so suddenly his knee bumped the underside of the table. Armadillo bile sloshed in its vial as the eyes knocked around in their dish. Sherlock ignored it all, striding toward his violin and taking up an intricate Brahms before his mind could run any further amuck.

Focused on the intricate fingerings of the music, Sherlock missed how the passing of minutes became the passing of hours. He paused in his playing, only to discover it was 2:00 in the morning.

A scream rent the air.

Clattering the violin back into its case, Sherlock bounded through the sitting room, up the stairs, toward Hermione's room, from where the scream had come.

"Hermione!" he shouted. Completely forgetting the possibility of the Anti-Intruder charm, he leaped up the final few steps and burst into her room.

Hermione was sitting, bolt upright in her bed, clutching the sheet close to herself and heaving for breath.

For many people, the confirming sight of a complete freak-out would propel them toward the sufferer in question. They would engage a combination of approach and restraint, the first to be supportive and the second to prevent escalation into an absolute meltdown. They would take a cautious seat, gently touch an elbow, quietly offer a tissue. Eventually, there would be words of comfort. Certainly, there would be a full embrace.

Sherlock, on seeing the confirming sight of Hermione's freak-out, completely froze.

His feet were stuck. His words were gone. He was, however, doing an excellent job of keeping the door frame in place, considering the monstrous grip he had on the thing.

John would know what to do. Though John would probably freak the hell out himself if Sherlock actually went and followed through on the advice.

Too many seconds had slung by. He had to say something. He went for the safest thing possible. "Hermione?"

She had one hand pressed hard into the mattress beside her, trying to steady herself, trying to get in a full breath. She was fully failing at the latter. So, rendered speechless, she could only wave a hand mutely in response. It clearly meant, "Don't worry. I'm fine."

Yes, Sherlock understood what her gesture meant. No, he did not know what to do about it. Did this mean he was supposed to leave? Did it mean he was supposed to go sit next to her?

Again, he went for what was safe: deductions. He had to solve the question of what had caused Hermione to scream. On his case scale of 1-as-boring to 10-as-interesting, this particular problem was in negative territory. No matter. He observed the evidence. He reached his conclusion. "Nightmare."

"Yeah." Hermione's breathing was improving.

Having now completed the one action of which he was capable, Sherlock once again was at a loss.

"You don't have to stay," Hermione said. She had dropped the sheet, revealing a semi-ratty t-shirt worn to baby-smooth softness.

Sherlock did not move.

"It's alright," Hermione continued. She wiped her nose with the sheet. "I'm fine. You can go."

"From the way your eyes continually look down and to the left, not to mention the clutching in your right hand and the strain in your jaw, you are lying."

For the first time, Hermione looked at him. "I just woke up screaming from a nightmare, and now you're calling me a liar?"

Sherlock was stiff to the point of petrification. The only thing that moved were his eyes, looking everywhere except the one person he very much wanted to see. More seconds passed. He cleared his throat. Finally he said, "You may have noticed that I am not particularly skilled at these sorts of interactions."

A laugh burst from Hermione's lips. The chill of the nightmare suddenly receded, replaced by a gentle warmth that went from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes. Pulling her legs up underneath her, she leaned forward and patted the mattress. "Come. Sit."

Cautiously, he did. Very close to the edge, feet flat on the floor, torso horribly twisted. It seemed quite conceivable that Sherlock would have been more comfortable in a straight jacket.

It would be a lot easier for Hermione to hide a smile if Sherlock weren't doing an excellent impression of a paralyzed flamingo. But she managed.

Taking pity on him, Hermione scootched her body further away from his, nearly to the opposite edge of the mattress, and lay down. She put her hands under her head and stared at the ceiling. Her shifted body gave him space. Her shifted gaze did, too.

Sherlock knew exactly what she was doing. And was grateful for it. He moved into a more comfortable position. Surprisingly, his legs decided that this meant drawing themselves up onto the bed entirely. He found himself sitting bent-kneed, almost fully facing Hermione.

A few moments passed, but Sherlock no longer felt them uncomfortable. Eventually Hermione said, still looking at the ceiling, "You probably don't have nightmares."

"I do."

Her head rolled over until her eyes met his in surprise. "Oh!" She looked back up again. "I guess that makes sense, actually. You've probably known quite a few traumatic experiences."

"I did grow up with Mycroft, yes."

Hermione snorted. "I was referring more to being stalked by madmen."

"As was I."

She couldn't help herself: Hermione laughed. "You should get along better with your brother."

"That is the most illogical statement I have heard you made, despite the fact that earlier you were explaining the theory behind people turning themselves into animals."

Hermione grew suddenly thoughtful. "I wonder, if Mycroft could be an Animingus, what animal he'd choose to be?"

"A fly. A maggot. One of those awful yap yap dogs that are always begging to be thrown out of a second-story window."

"I was thinking a killer whale."

A very unusual occurrence happened then, one so rare that the appearance of it shot a thrill up Hermione's spine: Sherlock laughed.

Not a smirk, not a snort, but the real full-bellied thing. It was impossible to see it and not keep a straight face. So soon Hermione was giggling right alongside him as he bent over with laughter, holding his stomach.

It took almost a minute for Sherlock to recover. When he did, his face was red and streaked with the tears of mirth. Hermione had never seen Sherlock so affected. She bet would very, very few ever had.

That she was one of the rare souls to do so made her feel strangely content.

Finally, a still-grinning Sherlock exhaled heavily and flopped back on the bed. "A killer whale. Of course. The image will sustain me through Christmas for years to come."

They were now lying side by side. Hermione could feel her blood begin to race. The skin along her left side began tingle, as if her very cells were jittery with the desire to touch.

Though he'd never admit it, Sherlock's was experiencing a similar reaction. He, however, was forcing himself not to think of it, instead calculating the average distance between their bodies (closest at the hips, a bit further at the dip of her hip, oh god nearly touching at the feet), estimating it to be less than 5 centimeters.

He found that fact inordinately pleasing.

An odd desire began to build in his chest, a desire to tell Hermione that he was… happy? Something. Something new, which of course was the only reason why he was allowing himself to experience it. He was merely collecting data to add to his file of Emotion-Driven Motives. That he could not stop smiling was simply a side effect of the condition.

The desire to speak to Hermione became so strong that his lips parted before his brain worked out what to say. Air rushed up from his lungs, past his vocal cords, over his tongue and teeth, making the vowels and shaping the consonants, until the words were out, and he didn't even know what they were going to be until he heard them himself:

"It was because of the corpses."

(_What?!_)

Hermione swiveled her head. "_What_?"

The deduction spilled out of its own accord. "You said you had not had a nightmare for some time. This one was triggered by the sight of the five bodies in Molly's morgue earlier today. You claimed almost immediately afterward that you were fine, but your recovery did not extend to your subconscious." He tilted his head a tiny bit. She was so close he could see the flecks of gold in her eyes. "You dreamed of those five people."

Her concession was in her sigh. She looked back up, blinking fast for a few seconds. "You'd think I'd be over it by now. They died when I was seventeen. Half a life-time ago." She did the math. "Literally, actually."

Sherlock watched her chest rise and fall. "Yet you still do this work."

She exhaled, having been thinking the same thing. "Well. We don't have world peace yet."

Sherlock was stricken. "Thank _God_."

Hermione's laugh was low and long. She turned her head on her pillow to look at him. "One of these days, you're going to have to find something other than crime to relieve your boredom."

Now he rolled his head toward her. "What would you propose?"

He hadn't intended it to sound suggestive. But from the way Hermione was turning curiously red, she'd heard it that way. And from the way his own face was warming up, he knew she knew he knew.

Simultaneously, they both looked back up to the ceiling.

Such a comforting thing to look at. Blank. White. There. No expectations, no questions, no delicate negotiation of feelings when it came to ceilings.

And, as it turns out, gazing upon them was quite soporiferous. It wasn't until Sherlock was awake again that he realized he had slept.

It wasn't until he heard her sigh, just under his chin, that Sherlock realized he had slept with Hermione in his arms.


	8. Chapter 8

Not until he began dismantling Moriarty's network did Sherlock realize the waking was a skill. It had to be done immediately and fully, all senses alert. Just as importantly, for those first few seconds, it was imperative to remain perfectly still. To a passerby, someone who possessed the skill of waking would not appear awake at all.

The purpose of this, of course, was two-fold. Statistically, intel collected via eavesdropping was of greater value when the chatterer thought no one could hear. And the precious seconds to review options and devise a plan allowed for higher probability of successful action.

Upon waking in Hermione's bed, Sherlock's body executed full alert-slash-stillness. Simultaneously, he completed a five-sense sweep of his situation. The magntitude of what his waking body face was immediately apparent. Touch, sound, smell: all confirmed that Sherlock was presently engaged with a small, beautiful woman in what could only be described as Full On Cuddle.

His brain leapt into planning mode:

• _Obviously he hadn't intended to sleep in Hermione's bed, let alone with her in his arms—_

• _He had to get out before Hermione woke up and realized he'd spent the night—_

• _He had to disentangle himself without her noticing by undertaking a series of steps that ranged in complexity. Easy: remove his arm from around her waist. Difficult: slide his arm out from under her neck—_

• _From there it was off the bed and three steps to the door. Had the mattress creaked last night when he sat on the bed? He had no data point for this fact. How could he have no data point?_

• _(Because last night all his senses had been focused on Hermione, her rumpled hair, her slowing breath, her warm eyes, nothing else mattered, just the glint in her eyes as she smiled at him—)_

• _FOCUS. FOCUS. FOCUS._

• _Once he had completed his evacuation of the scene, it would never be acknowledged again. If she brought it up, he would dismiss it. If she insisted, his story would be firm: he had inquired as to the reason for her scream and departed promptly after she fell back asleep._

Perfect. A course of action was established. Time to commence execution.

Sherlock opened his eyes.

Immediately, he forgot his plan.

She was close and she was warm and she was heady and she was _here_.

With the way her head was tucked into his neck, Sherlock could only see a bit of Hermione's forehead, the tip of her nose, and strands of hair wisping all around. The skin he could see was not perfect. There were lines on her forehead. Blackheads on her nose. The details were registered as irrelevant.

(Though they wouldn't be deleted. His collection of facts that were both unimportant and unforgettable was small but did exist. Like the brand of John's toothbrush, or which Tuesday it was that kitty litter was delivered to Molly's flat, or that his mother's favorite color of those horrid Jordan almonds she illogically hid because no other Holmes could stand them was yellow.)

(Although a case could be made that, for each of those other facts, his knowledge of them had at one point been useful. Such as when he'd had to replace John's toothbrush after using the original to scrub a metatarsal. Or when he was hiding in Molly's flat. Or wanted to blame the theft of his mother's favorite candy on Mycroft. According to this criteria, there was absolutely no conceivable reason to save the knowledge of Hermione's blackheads.)

(They still weren't getting deleted.)

It was remarkable how the addition of visual stimuli heightened each of the other senses. Hermione's scent washed over him (soap, musk, a tinge of vanilla, a wisp of earth). Her breaths were even. Her body fit perfectly into the curve of his own, his chin in her hair, his thighs under her bottom. One of her hands was thrown out to the side, the other resting atop his.

He was physically closer to her than he had been to anyone in years. And yet an instinct to tuck her in tighter to him swept alarmingly through Sherlock. It defied logic. Even as he mentally countered all the reasons why such a course of action was unthinkable (_sentiment, sentiment, sentiment_) the instinct swelled, became want, became need.

It grew harder to resist. It grew impossible to remain still. So, finally, he didn't.

He rolled away from her.

His right arm withdrew from her waist, his left from beneath her head. When he rose from the bed, the mattress did not creak. Neither did the floorboards. His exit occurred in perfect stealth. His plan had been achieved without flaw.

Save one. It was easily overlooked, considering Sherlock's concentration on noiseless movement. But, once in the doorway, had he taken the moment to survey the scene he had just left, he might have noticed that Hermione's eyes were open, too.

* * *

><p>"Ha! I knew he would do this. Hermione, let's go!"<p>

Sherlock leaped up from the desk. It was just after lunchtime. The morning had passed in silence, though Hermione made her appearance early on in the day. Sherlock, deep into Mycroft's hacked email, had kept his face resolutely toward his laptop. He would not engage. He refused to acknowledge her facial expressions or read her body language or god forbid _talk_.

And so it was with relief that Sherlock realized, several moments after Hermione had descended the stairs, that she was as inclined to ignore him as he her. Relief and only relief. Not a hint of disappointment. Nope. Not at all.

At the moment Sherlock burst out of his chair, Hermione had been curled into a corner of the couch, reading. She never thought to be startled, or annoyed at the expectation of her instant engagement, or peeved with the sudden acknowledgement of her presence in general. She merely stood and followed. And not once did she smile at how adorable Sherlock was when he got excited. Nope. Not at all.

She might have smiled a little bit when he held the cab door open for her.

Once he had climbed in after Hermione, Sherlock gave the cabbie the address.

"Headed to see Mycroft, then?" Hermione said, recognizing the street. She tucked her wand away; the nonverbal _Muffliato_ spell when in a cab with Sherlock was now a given.

"Headed to see Mycroft's intelligence officer. That Mycroft will be there is well is regrettable but, since presumably we would not get the information otherwise, an acceptable downside."

Hermione bit back a grin. "Who's the intelligence officer?"

"The email said 13:00. Below that WC047."

Hermione leaned back, squinting a little. "The time and the code name. I don't know whose. Can't guarantee they'd share the information with me, especially if Mycroft's there."

"Wonderful! We'll use diversionary tactics, so much more fun that way."

Hermione hid a smile. "I can say the officer is one of ours." At Sherlock's raised eyebrows, she explained: "WC."

"Ah. Wand carrier." Ok, it had been a bit of shot in the dark, but from the way Hermione grinned, Sherlock had been right about the meaning. Of course he was. He was always right. This was not unusual. There really was no reason to feel quite so delighted at the look on Hermione's face.

Of course, Sherlock did allow himself to feel a bit pleased at the look on Mycroft's face when they burst into his office.

"Mycroft," Sherlock said in greeting, striding up to his enormous desk. Then he turned to see the other person in the room, and blinked. Twice.

The woman wore a magenta business suit and jeweled glasses, her perfectly curled hair oddly stiff. On Mycroft's desk lay an open crocodile-skin bag, from which she had just withdrawn a notebook. At the sight of Sherlock, her eyes gleamed.

"Perfect timing, it appears," Sherlock said, nodding toward the notebook in her hand. "I see you are just about to report to Mycroft. Let's save all of us the time, shall we? I'll take that and we'll go solve the case." He held out his hand, long fingers outstretched.

The woman narrowed her eyes at Sherlock, dragging her gaze down and up his figure. She smirked, then turned toward Mycroft, likely to comment on the familial trait of assholery.

But Hermione was already laying into him. "Mycroft! Your intelligence officer is _Rita Skeeter_?" she shouted, pointing at the clashingly-clad witch. She rounded the desk and stomped right up to him, eyes flashing.

Mycroft's smile was tight, though Hermione did not miss the glint of confusion in his eyes. He was not expecting this reaction. "I must get my intelligence of the wizarding world from somewhere, Ms. Granger."

"But _her_?"

Rita leaned back against the desk and smiled widely, revealing three gold teeth. "She's not my biggest fan," she said in fake confidentiality to Mycroft. Her gaze snapped back to Hermione. "Though to be fair, I'm not hers, either."

Mycroft, who was standing as straight as he could without actually leaning back from Hermione, looked like he'd rather be in his mother's kitchen than in the middle of a conversation between those two women.

Rita flipped open her notebook. She withdrew an acid green quill from her bag and sucked the tip. "So. Little Miss Perfect. Do tell, how have you enjoyed your new life as a _bodyguard_?"

Hermione hissed in a breath. "I am not telling you anything."

"Bit of a step down for you, isn't it? From directing a department to escorting a Muggle." Rita swung her hard gaze over to Sherlock. "Is he even aware you are one of the Golden Trio?"

Sherlock cut his eyes toward Hermione, then back to Rita. The muscle between his eyebrows twitched.

Rita's smile had shifted from sardonic to flat-out leer. "No? Well then allow me the pleasure of telling you."

She snapped the notebook shut, pressing it on to Mycroft's desk with splayed fingers. Her red-painted nails curled over the edges of the notebook like talons. "The Golden Trio were the three children who thwarted every attempt of Lord Voldemort until, after seven years, they vanquished him completely."

Clasping her hands together in front of her heart, as if remembering the saints, Rita continued is a voice that dripped with fake admiration. "Harry Potter, good and brave; Ron Weasley; loyal and strong; and Ms. Hermione Granger brainy and…"

She paused, as if struggling to come up with another non-insulting descriptor.

"In possession of a vagina," Hermione supplied.

Mycroft became extremely stiff.

"Sorry," said Hermione, not really sorry at all. "Didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. It's just, well…" Hermione leaned in toward Mycroft conspiratorially. "Rita was obsessed with my vagina," she said in a loud whisper.

If she'd tapped Mycroft with her index finger, it seemed quite possible he'd topple over like a tree.

Rita's smile had cooled. Her hands pressed against the mahogany wood of the desk as she leaned across it. "Once again, you flatter yourself."

Hermione's eyebrows jumped to her hairline. "I flatter myself?" Her jaw clenched. "The first time you saw fit to publish a piece in the newspaper about my sex life, I was _fourteen_. There were dozens of articles about my relationship with Ron, speculating on every intimate detail. You had a field day when we broke up, following us around for months. And all of that pales to the lead-up to my eighteenth birthday."

Hermione's tight-lipped smile did nothing to cover the fact that she was practically vibrating with fury.

"Every day in the paper, you published a countdown until the day I turned eighteen, the day men could legally have sex with me. Legally meaning my age, of course, there was never interest in the legality of _my own fucking consent_."

Hermione sucked in a breath through her nose. By the time she exhaled, the fake smile was back in place. "And, on the day itself, a lovely article speculating as to whether my vagina was still untouched or used goods."

"It was not an article," Rita snapped, "Just a sidebox reporting the odds of your virginity."

Grown men would have crumbled at the look on Hermione's face. Indeed, Mycroft appeared close to providing proof. "Ah, I forgot about that. My vagina as inspiration for gambling. One of its higher achievements."

She crossed her arms, glancing at Mycroft who had been marble-statue-still. The sight of him did nothing to ease her temper. "Oh come off it Mycroft. It's not as if you weren't pushed out of a vagina yourself oh-so-many years ago."

Mycroft was now also the color of a marble statue.

Hermione looked toward Sherlock, watching from a step or two behind Rita, hands clasped behind his back. She looked then toward the desk. It was bare.

Suddenly, her anger dropped away. "Got it then?" she asked cheerfully.

Sherlock held up the notebook. Hermione grinned. "How was that for diversionary tactics?"

It would have been useless to hide a smile, so Sherlock didn't bother. He tipped his head in a nod. "I doff my hat to you."

Rocking back on her heels, she glanced at Mycroft. His color had come back and then some. She chuffed him on the arm. "Thanks for this. A much preferable way to get our information. Sitting through briefing meetings is so tedious."

She strode out from behind his desk, beaming at Sherlock.

Rita gaped at Sherlock, then Hermione, then Sherlock before focusing her anger on the British Government. "Mycroft!" she screeched. "Get it back!"

"Oh Rita," Hermione said, the pity in her voice somewhat ineffective in light of her crinkling eyes. "You don't expect me to be disarmed by a Muggle do you?"

(Somehow, the word didn't sound so bad to Sherlock when it was being applied to Mycroft.)

"And let's not pretend you could, either," Hermione continued. She had drawn her wand and was casually switching it back and forth, crackles of fire emitting with each flick of her wrist. "We already know how that will turn out, and no one wants you to get hurt."

(Everyone knew that last bit was a fib.)

"You know my notes are jinxed against unwanted readers," Rita said through her teeth.

"You just said I was the brains of the Golden Trio. Have a little faith, Rita."

Whatever insult Rita was preparing was interrupted by a tap on the window. Four heads turned at once to see an owl perched on the outside sill.

"Oh perfect, this must be my boomslang skin," Hermione said, moving to the window. She opened it wide and the bird flapped inside, landing on Hermione's arm.

"Hello Pig III," she said, stroking the owl's beak.

Once again, Sherlock felt as if the laws of gravity had been rewritten just slightly, tilting everything a hair off-balance.

Hermione began to untie a small bag that was attached to the owl's leg. "How are the Potters?"

It was a testament to Sherlock's growing threshold of the bizarre that he almost expected the owl to speak in return, and was slightly disappointed when he only nipped affectionately at Hermione's finger.

With another pat on the head, Hermione held her arm out the window. The owl soared off.

Hermione lifted the bag off of the sill, surprised to find it quite a bit heavier than expected. It would require investigation. But later. She spun back toward the others, each sporting some version of a grimace. Though to be sure, not for the same reasons.

"Oh cheer up," she said. "I've got the potion ingredients, Sherlock has the information to solve the case, this will all be over soon enough."

(The thought seared through Sherlock's chest before he could help it: Then what?)

"A moment that will delight us all, I'm sure," Mycroft said. He had regained his resting pose of sardonic disdain. Cutting his eyes toward his intelligence officer, he said, "Ms. Skeeter, you may provide your report to me verbally." His subsequent look at Sherlock was far less impassive. "I need not remind you that your findings must be reported to me immediately. We wouldn't want any unburdened knowledge to be causing you… _nightmares_."

Hermione felt her insides seize.

Mycroft knew. He knew about last night. She didn't know whether she was more angry for him for spying or for herself for not realizing he would be. He had known about her, he had known about her and Sherlock_—_

"A fair concern, our introduction to your colleague." Sherlock's expression was dismissive. Only a bit of derision in his voice belied the fact that he knew exactly what Mycroft was insinuating.

"I'm sure the dreams she inspires are appropriately blood-curdling. As if her clothes are not already atrocious, the idea that she purports to be a spy in such attire is horrific indeed." He faced Rita head on, looking her up and down in disgust. "Clearly, remaining unnoticed is a feat only accomplished with _magic_."

Sherlock said 'magic' like another might say 'training pants.'

Rita smirked. "Oh Mr. Holmes, I'm disappointed in you. Weren't you the one who said the art of disguise is hiding in plain sight?"

Sherlock froze. She wasn't possibly implying what he thought she was_—_

"I read about it in your file," Rita said sweetly.

So, yes. She was implying that.

Very slowly, Sherlock turned toward Mycroft. His eyes were black pinpoints. "Explain."

Mycroft refused to be unnerved by his brother's wrath. "Oh do get over it, Sherlock, of course you have a file."

"What. Is. In. It."

"Everything." Rita gloated, absolutely aware she was making it worse and delighted to be doing so.

Now Sherlock's gaze shifted, much too slowly, toward Hermione. He refused to ask the question for which he already had the answer. She bit the inside of her lower lip, refusing to confirm the answer she already knew he'd guessed.

As disdainful as ever, Mycroft said it all for them. "Of course she's read your file, Sherlock, she would be a terrible bodyguard otherwise."

Sherlock never looked away from Hermione. His blue eyes bored into her hazel ones. Then, without a word, he turned on his heel, coat billowing, and left the room.

Hermione jumped after him. As angry as Sherlock might be with her, she had to remain near him. He still needed magical protection from threats he himself could not battle.

"Ms. Granger." Coming from Mycroft, her name was a command. She paused.

Mycroft turned toward Rita. "Could you ensure that my brother returns to his flat safely?" he asked. "Discreetly, please."

"Mycroft!" Hermione was aghast. "You're entrusting Sherlock's safety to her?"

Rita arched an eyebrow. "Some of us have the capability of remaining… _professional_."

Feeling the color rise in her cheeks only made Hermione blush harder.

Smiling widely, gold teeth glinting, Rita whirled up into the air. Her body suddenly shrank to almost nothingness, leaving behind only a shiny beetle flying midair. It buzzed toward Hermione, as if daring her to swat, before zipping toward the door and out the room.

Hermione watched her go without rancor. "It'd be so easy to commit the perfect murder with her. Smush the bug and feed it to a cat. Chop it in the food processor and mix it into cookies."

"Do refrain from ever mentioning such a thing to Sherlock."

Hermione cocked an eyebrow up at the taller man. "You think I might scare him off?" she asked.

"On the contrary."

It took a moment for Hermione to understand what Mycroft meant. He wasn't warning her against pushing Sherlock away. He was warning her against pulling his brother closer.

Her lips parted in disbelief. "You do know that the way you think is absurd, don't you? Friendship is normal. Helpful, even."

Now Mycroft raised an eyebrow at her. "Indeed? Tell me how the emotions that arose from the memory of your five dead friends was at all helpful."

Hermione could not trust herself to open her mouth. She swallowed, willing the contents of her gut to stay in place.

"Friends are liabilities. Love is what let you feel pain."

"Love is what let us win." Hermione's voice was so low it could barely be heard, and yet her words reverberated around the room.

Mycroft's expression of polite contempt never wavered. He remained silent, indicating no desire to continue to argue the point. The glint of disdain in his eyes, however, meant he'd never agree.

Hermione had to finish this conversation before she exploded out of her skin. Or worse, cried. "What do you want, Mycroft."

"I am to tell you that your request was processed this morning."

"Perfect. So I should tell Sherlock_—_"

"It was denied."

She sucked in a breath. "You denied it?"

"I am afraid there is a protocol here, Ms. Granger. The decision was not entirely in my hands."

"That's giantshit."

Mycroft spread his hands. "I did what I could."

"What you did was just now let him walk out of here with Rita's notebook! What you did was put it on him to solve the case!

"We both know he'd have it no other way."

"And once he has solved the case, then what? What do you plan to do then?"

Mycroft's jaw was set. He tilted his head just a touch. "I think you of all people know the answer to that."

A wave of horror swept through Hermione. Breathing hard through her nostrils, she shook her head. "No. You can't do that to him."

"There is no other option."

"You know he has a mind unlike anyone else in the world!"

"Not everyone would find that an argument in your favor of your request."

"He will be furious."

"He will never know. That's the point, isn't it?"

"He will."

Mycroft's eyebrows raised just a touch.

"He will know." Hermione's hands were clenched at her side, voice absolutely sure. "He already does."

The eyebrows crept higher. "Indeed?"

"I think so." She went to run her fingers through her hair, but it was still swept up in a clip. Now even more frustrated, she yanked her fingers out, pulling several strands loose, making a halo of frizz.

"Well then, Ms. Granger, I suggest that next time, the Ministry employ an Obliviator with more skill."

A pit of lead dropped in Hermione's gut.

Mycroft leaned in closer. "And until that time, I suggest you strongly limit how much he knowledge acquires. The more that he learns, the more he is at risk to lose when the time comes. And I assure you, the time _will_ come."

His phone chimed. He glanced at it. "My car is here. I trust you can Apparate yourself back to Baker Street?" Without waiting for an answer, Mycroft turned on his heel and, umbrella tapping at his side, left the room.

An icy void was growing in Hermione's chest. She recognized the feeling. It was one she had only experienced once before. One she'd never, ever, hoped to feel again.

Seeking distraction, Hermione clutched at the bag that had been delivered moments prior. She yanked the drawstring and looked inside.

The pouch was the size of her fist, but the space within a hundred times that. There was the box of boomslang skin. And next to it, a stack of seven books.

Hermione blinked. There was no question as to what they were, but every question in the world as to why Ginny had sent them. What the hell was Hermione meant to do with them?

Staring at them provided no answers. So, with a muddled and aching head, she cinched tight the bag and Apparated herself back into John's old room.

Hermione had thought aiming for her room would land her in a space away from everything, where she could think. But the first thing she saw was her bed. It still held the indentation from where Sherlock had lain. It still held it, of course, because Hermione had not made the bed. Deliberately.

Sighing heavily, she whirled herself around and plunked her butt on the mattress. She fell back, arms spread. The ceiling gazed down at her from above. She raised her eyebrows at it. It was as silent as ever.

"You give terrible advice," she told it.

It said nothing in return.

There was a muffled thump as the outer door opened and shut, then the louder slam of the door to the flat. Sherlock was back. She heard stomping, then the final bang of his bedroom door closing.

Of course he was pissed. She knew everything about him. From Redbeard to rehab (multiple times), it was all in the file. And he, who found ignorance an insult, knew nothing of her. It was wildly unfair. Hermione had known it from the beginning, had known he'd be furious when he realized it. And yet there had been nothing she could do, nothing she could think of that would even them out_—_

Hermione suddenly sat up. She scrambled the bag toward her, jerked it open.

"_Accio_," she whispered.

Out of the bag flew the seven books. They laid themselves out neatly across her bed.

Hermione ran her thumb over the engraved title in the leather. Harry had had the books made as an anniversary present for Ginny. Previously, it was just masses of scrolls, a haphazard pile of tales. Their friend Luna had edited Ginny's drafts into full manuscripts. And here lay the results on her bed, as heavy and visceral as the memories in her heart.

She had absolutely no desire to read them.

She knew someone who might.

Clutching the first book to her chest, Hermione descended the stairs. Her heart beat so hard she could feel it through the hard binding and the few hundred pages besides. Unwittingly, her footsteps matched the beat of her pulse as she crossed the landing, turned into the kitchen, walked the length of the hall.

Before she could give herself a moment to think whether this was a good idea (because it really wasn't, it really was a baaaaaaad idea), Hermione knocked.

There was no answer. She cracked open the door.

Sherlock was lying on his bed, fingertips under his chin, eyes open. From the glare on his face, the ceiling here was as unequally unaccomodating as the one upstairs.

"Hi," she said as she stepped inside, not expecting an answer.

Sherlock met those expectations.

Hermione shifted the book from her arms so that she was instead gripping it between two hands. Explanations crowded in her mouth, but when she opened her lips, all that came out was, "You should read this."

Stiff-armed, she laid the book on the bed. "It will tell you everything could want to know about the magical world. And, um. Me."

Sherlock said nothing, but the crease between his eyebrows softened just a touch.

"I thought it was only fair, since I read your file." She stepped back. "So…"

Unable to figure out how to continue that sentence, or how to continue being in this room at all, Hermione turned to leave.

"Does it say what a Mudblood is?" Sherlock's voice was low. His gaze never moved.

Hermione paused. She looked back, the question almost to her lips before she realized she knew the answer. She slept in a t-shirt. He would have seen the scar on her forearm, the word "mudblood" etched into her flesh. Last night, when he was in her bedroom. When she was in his arms.

Hermione cleared her throat. "Yes. Well. I don't think it comes up until the second book. There's seven. One for each year we were at school."

If Sherlock thought this was a lot or a little, he made no indication of it.

Hermione looked at him a second more, her body still suck in that half-twisted posture, realizing she should have tacked on an explanation of what a 'mudblood' was, realizing her allotted time to do so was now well past, realizing her time to make a smooth exit had scampered by, too.

Stiffly, she turned back, trying not to look hesitant, then trying not to look rushed, and managing to fail both ways.

It didn't matter. Sherlock never looked her way.

Without another word, Hermione pulled the door shut with a click. She pressed her forehead to the wall and exhaled.

It was done. Let the chips fall where they may.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N Question for you, dear readers. Am only on this website but considering duplicating this story on AO3 or Wattpad. Thoughts?**

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><p>The rooms of 221b Baker Street were mostly quiet for the rest of the afternoon. Hermione concentrated on her Revelation potion, which she'd use on the lace. Though it could help in identifying from where the love potion ingredients had been procured, it was a fiddly thing, prone to curdling without properly calibrated additives. After her third bout of frustrated swearing, Sherlock had entered the kitchen and wordlessly opened the drawers and cupboards that housed his flasks, scales, pipettes.<p>

It was like watching a baby discover his fingers. Her face lighting up, Hermione immediately began rattling ways of conversion from the metric system to wizard measurements with great enthusiasm. Sherlock would not admit that he became completely lost about three sentences in (bobotuber pus? what the hell…?). He would, however, handily swear to never seeing anyone ever get so excited about scientific equipment.

It made his insides rather warm and tingly.

As for him, he had taken up residence in his chair and was poring through Rita's notebook. Shortly after Hermione's visit to give him her book, he emerged from his bedroom with a please-less demand for tea, at which Hermione laughed, at which point he repeated his request in the direction of the stairs and with greater volume. When Mrs. Hudson arrived with a tea tray a short while later (and her usual counterfactual "not your housekeeper" remarks), Sherlock berated her for having made English Breakfast instead of Earl Grey.

Everyone knew Sherlock prefered English Breakfast. But this, and the fact that Earl Grey was Hermione's favorite, went unsaid.

Hermione swallowed a smile but still glanced at Sherlock, knowing she was forgiven. Sherlock remained aloof, yet knew she knew she was forgiven. And Mrs. Hudson tittered and hummed "Strangers in the Night" as she went down the stairs, which Sherlock just found odd. But sometimes his landlady just did odd things.

Now, ensconced in his chair by the fire with the objectionable cup of tea, he was just identifying where within the mess of her notes lay the name of the bewitched witch.

"Mafalda Hopkirk," Sherlock said suddenly.

Hermione stuck her head out of the kitchen. "What about her?"

"She was the witch under the love potion that hired Goyle." He stabbed a finger on the page in front of him. "Trace amount of scent on this page indicate it was written this afternoon. She is clearly in Mycroft's empoy, because the name is in code. She also clearly is one of the many idiots in Mycroft's employ, because the alphabetic substitution code is _based on her own name."_

"You don't need to convince me she's an idiot," Hermione said vaguely. Her thoughts were more focused on the name Sherlock had procured. "Mafalda Hopkirk?"

"Mm. You know her?"

"Sort of."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow, but Hermione did not elucidate, so he dropped the eyebrow, scowled, and huffed for good meaure. "Explain."

Her gaze was glued to the floor, where one toe twisted back and forth in hesitation. "I may have struck her unconscious and disguised myself as her so we could get into the Ministry of Magic," she said in a fast voice.

The notion of stealing someone's identity for the purpose of infiltrating a secret place one would rightfully appall almost anyone. "Almost anyone" almost never included Sherlock. Certainly not in this case. He drummed his fingers rapidly on the armrests of his chair. "Interesting! So you must share similar features in appearance?"

"Oh, no, we used Polyjuice Potion. I put in one of her hairs and it made me look exactly like her."

His fingers stilled.

_A drink that instantly made you look like someone completely different._ Entire new lines of detective work had suddenly become possible. He could disguise himself as Lestrade. He could desguise himself as Irene Adler. He could disguise himself as… Mycroft.

Sherlock scooted close to the edge of his chair, his breathing shallow. "I need this potion. Where can I buy it."

"You can't buy it, Sherlock! You have to make it yourself."

"Fine. How do I do that."

A few facts became quite clear to Hermione. 1. Not being a wizard, Sherlock couldn't even effectively stir the contents of a cauldron, much less make a potion. 2. Also not being a wizard, the potion would likely kill him before it changed him. And, 3. Bluntly explaining this would drive the man into a massive sulk.

So Hermione hedged. "It's very tricky to make."

"You can obviously make it. I presume it was you who made this potion when taking on the personage of Mafalda Hopkirk. Certainly it was not that man Ralph."

Hermione blinked. "Who?"

Sherlock waved a hand exasperatedly. "Ralph, the red-head, the man who was here the other day."

It still took her an extra second. "_Ron_?"

"Whatever. Yes. Him. Does not strike me as the type to manage anything that could remotely be labeled 'tricky.'"

Unclear how to respond to this last bit (because she still loved Ron as a friend but omigod was Sherlock right), she jumped to what she knew. "Yes, I made it."

"Perfect! I'll need you to make it for me immediately."

Again, it was flat impossible. Again, Hermione couldn't actually say this. "It takes a month to make!"

"Hm." Sherlock sat back in his chair. He steepled his hands under his chin. "What happens when this case is solved. Do they ship you off to another assignment?"

"What? Oh, no. I'm London-based, but Sherlock_—_"

"Wonderful! So after this case is completed, there need not be any reason why we cannot continue our… our…"

Sherlock was in the extraordinary position of suddenly being at a loss for words. "Acquaintanceship" had been on the tip of his tongue. But that word wasn't right, it didn't take into account how deliciously she provided a diversion for him this afternoon or how she'd made him laugh last night or how just a few days ago she'd saved his life during the attack by Goyle_—_

"Friendship?" It was Hermione who suggested the word, though her raised eyebrows belied more than a bit of hesitation.

Sherlock frowned. "Until recently I would not have used that word in regard to any person I knew."

Hermione nodded a little. "But now you do. In regard more than one person. I bet if you counted up your friends, you'd even need two hands!"

The ideas Hermione were suggesting were so foreign Sherlock didn't know what to consider first: the practice of actually counting the number of one's friends, or of needing two hands to do so.

"It's a joke, Sherlock," Hermione said kindly.

Her reassurance did nothing to ease his general bewilderment. _Friends_. Friends? Friends.

"We kissed," he blurted. Why did his mouth keep saying things that his brain had not yet approved? He was going to have to do something about this, but not now. Now he was focused on two and only two things: the memory of the kiss, and how to appear calm in light of the memory of the kiss.

Hermione stiffened slightly. Her expression, however, was neutral. "I'd have said you kissed me."

Sherlock ignored this minor detail. "Do friends… kiss… each other?"

It took her a half-second too long to reply. "It's been known to happen. Usually under extenuating circumstances. Such a severe blood loss."

"Hm." Sherlock leaned back in his chair, hands steepling under chin. He reviewed the evidence. "The logical deduction here would be then that we are… friends.

Hermione nodded solemnly. "I believe so."

"Good, good…" Sherlock drifted into silence as Hermione, biting back a smile, resumed her work.

A moment passed before Sherlock suddenly spoke again. "You never intended to make me Polyjuice Potion, did you."

"Nope."

"Because I'm not a wizard."

"Yup." Hermione, pressed her lips together, waiting for it.

Sherlock, despite having just increased his number of friends by a dramatic percentage, remained consistent to all expectations. He crossed his arms, jutted up his chin, and huffed into a sulk.

* * *

><p>It had been three hours, and so far, friendship with Hermione had been rather calm. Once she said she was making coffee and should she make enough for two. Another time she'd waved her wand and shouted, "<em>Accio<em> cameras!" and all of Mycrofts secret recorders burst out of their hiding spots and zoomed toward her, which she then be disposed. True, the spell didn't particularly have much to do with their status as friends, but it was pretty cool anyway.

Other than that, they ignored each other. Hermione worked over the cauldron on the kitchen table. Sherlock laid on the couch, reading the book she'd given him the night before. It was rather perfect.

Until the sudden visit of that red-headed man again. As John had told him (countless times), friends did not deduce other people's friends or insult other people's friends or generally do anything that might cause an emotional breakdown in other people's friends. _Tedious_.

Friendship with Hermione was one thing, but if that meant he'd be expected to be friendly to her other friends, there was going to need to be some renegotiation.

He settled on a compromise by nodding once in acknowledgement, then immediately pulling Hermione's book back up so he could eavesdrop.

Ron, it seemed, had dropped by in a tizzy out of nerves due to an impending event the following evening: his first date with Molly Hooper.

"I don't know how to date a Muggle!" Ron said, pouting in a way that's real cute at age eight and real old at age thirty-four.

Hermione looked patient. She also looked like it was taking effort. "It's rather like dating a witch, except without wands or the threat of love potions."

"But I can't talk about Quidditch or people I know or work I do! I can't even talk about music, all the bands I know are wizard bands!"

"So you ask her about what she likes. And then when you don't know who the band is you say so and then ask her to tell you about them. And if she seems surprised you don't know them you admit you don't know much about the topic but you've been wanting to learn and hope she could teach you."

It appeared to be vital to some corner of Sherlock's brain that he remember Hermione's advice word for word, because it was appearing in big black letters on the wall of the central hallway in his Mind Palace.

"It'd wouldn't be so hard if I could just say I was a wizard."

"And you can when you're engaged to be married."

There was a silence in which Sherlock presumed, correctly, that Ron was gaping like a fish for the mere mention of Life Commitment before there had even been a First Date.

Hermione sighed. "Exactly. And so that's why you not think anything magical at all and just ask her about herself."

The whine that escaped from Ron could have been bottled and used to scare away vermin. "Can't we just pass on the dinner and get straight to the sex?"

Hermione knew Ron was joking, mostly, and so she her look of exasperation was suitably sardonic. (Though she should still say what a terrible idea it was. When it came to Ron, it never hurt to very be explicit.) She took a breath to explain_—_

"No." Sherlock had spoken first. The book was still in front of his face.

He flipped a page.

Ron swiveled his head toward the detective, the set of his jaw becoming rigid. Though Sherlock's nod of greeting had been met with a chin lift, only now did Ron take a proper moment to look at the smugly reclining detective. When he realized what he was seeing, his mouth dropped open.

"Are you reading Ginny's book?" he demanded.

For the first time, Sherlock lowered the book, propping it on his bent-kneed legs. He directed a look at Ron. The expression on his face roughly interpretable as _And why would I deign to answer a question that has been asked by you?_

Hermione jumped in. "Yes. Ginny sent them to me yesterday."

Ron whirled his disbelieving eyes toward her. "Why?"

Her eyebrows v-ed. "Not sure, actually."

"And you decided to let him read it?"

"Obviously." Sherlock's voice sounded deeper than ever, coming on the heels of Ron's grown-man-screech.

"But-but that's about our time at school! The three of us! Me, Harry, and Hermione!"

Before Hermione could voice that, actually, that had been precisely the point, Sherlock's eyes had widened. "_You_ are in this?"

"Of course I am, I'm Harry's best mate!"

Once again, Hermione intervened before Sherlock could deliver one of his blistering retorts. "You must not be at the school stuff yet. Where are you?"

Sherlock eyed the open pages of the book with a distrust usually reserved for trigonometry, or clowns. "Harry and this giant Hagrid are about to enter an establishment known as 'The Leaky Cauldron.'"

"Hagrid's not a giant!" Ron said, leaping at the chance to feel outraged against this irritatingly handsome man.

Sherlock waved a dismissive hand. "Half-giant, then. Obviously raised by his human parent, he would have been crushed growing up among full giants. Was it his mother? Missing the characteristics of expectation, arrogance found in men raised by single mothers. His father, then. His mother was the giant."

There was a brief silence in which Ron's eyes surpassed the highest levels of bugging out and began approaching alien territory. He opened and closed his mouth, tongue smacking on his hard palate as he finally recovered his grasp of language. "We didn' know that about Hagrid for another three years!"

Sherlock sniffed. "I cannot help it if you do not observe, Rob."

"_'Ron'_," Hermione overemphasized. "And now you are totally doing it on purpose."

Sherlock hmmed absently, turning the page and continuing to read. It was as good an admission as Hermione would ever get.

Hermione slid her eyes back and forth between Sherlock and Ron, briefly wondering which of them was more exasperating. Closing her eyes, she sighed heavily. She had turned back toward Ron before she opened them again. "Ignore him," she instructed. Then she exhaled and plastered on a smile, determined to prevent any further provoking between the two men. "Where are you taking Molly?"

Ron was shooting a final glare full of ire toward Sherlock. "Hm?"

"Ron!" He jumped, then guiltily turned back to Hermione. "Where are you taking her?" she repeated.

There was a bit of silence that loudly indicated Ron had not yet thought about this. "Er…"

"Who is this Quirrel character?" Sherlock suddenly said from behind the book. "A stutter? Please. Nothing is easier to fake than a stutter. Whatever happens, he did it."

Hermione and Ron blinked. The wizard swung his gaze toward the witch. Mouth open, she shook her head: she hadn't said anything to Sherlock.

"I'm right, aren't I," Sherlock said conversationally. His eyes continued to zoom over the pages.

"Yes," Hermione said softly. She cleared her throat. "Quirrel was how Voldemort first came back. He let him take over his body. Harry saw Quirrel without his turban at the end, just before they tried to kill him. Voldemort's face was in the back of" _—_Hermione swallowed back the quiver in her voice_—_ "Quirrel's head."

For a moment, there was only stillness.

Then, slowly, Sherlock lowered the book two inches. He looked straight into Hermione's eyes, holding her gaze with gentleness that was surprising, and a fierceness that was not.

Hermione was stunned to find her eyes suddenly burning with unshed tears.

Sherlock blinked, raised the book again. "Well thanks for spoiling the ending for me," he said.

A laugh popped out of Hermione's mouth before she could help it. She quickly swiped at her eyes before looking toward Ron, grinning.

He, however, was decidedly less amused.

Right. Time to refocus the conversation. Ron's problem. His first date with Molly. "Restaurant," Hermione said to Ron. "You have to first take Molly to a restaurant."

There was a sudden thump. Sherlock had dropped the book on the floor and was striding toward the mantel, where his phone lay. Without preamble his thumbs began to fly over the small keyboard.

Ron stared blatantly at him. Hermione had to rap her knuckles on the table to get his attention again. "Restaurant?"

"What? Yeah. Um, that sounds good."

Past the point of holding back her impatience, Hermione said sharply, "Yes, but what one?"

"I dunno. 'S why I came here, aren't you supposed to tell me?"

Hermione was just about to wax poetic when it came to Ron's negative capabilities regarding tact when Sherlock said, "She likes Zucca, but Oliver's Fish and Chips is always a favorite standby." His eyes remained on his phone as he spoke. Periodically, it would _ching!_ as his texts were returned.

Ron blinked at Sherlock. Then he blinked at Hermione. The prat had actually garnered useful information.

"See?" Hermione said. "There you go. Two options."

Ron was not willing to so easily accede to the implication that Sherlock had been helpful. "Yeah, great," he said sardonically. "Those are only two massively different sets of expectations for a first date. Which one am I supposed to pick?"

Hermione remembered to breathe. Deeply. "Well, think of what you know about Molly. What would she want for_—_"

"Zucca," said Sherlock.

Two pairs of eyes swiveled his way. He did not return the favor.

"That's what she'd want." With a flurry of thumbs, he typed the final words into his phone and pocketed it. "Also, no sex on the first date, her favorite flowers are gerbena daisies, and she thinks cemeteries are romantic."

With the air of someone having just checked off all the items on the To Do list, Sherlock strode back toward the couch and his book.

Ron met him halfway there, blocking the way. Angry jealousy was writ large across his face.

Sherlock sighed. Honestly, the wizard had all the intelligence of a goat. "I can only presume that you have launched yourself in my way in order to demand an explanation for my knowledge regarding Molly. It is beyond your capabilities to believe that a man and a woman, having known each other for several years, might have acquired information regarding each other's tastes without intention or desire to employ said knowledge in a romantic liaison."

Ron's face was too squinty to indicate absorption of Sherlock's rapid fire remarks. The detective rolled his eyes. "We're _friends._"

Ron's chin pushed up. "You didn't know all that cause you'd dated her?"

"I do not 'date.'" Sherlock pronounced the d-word with an excess of diction, as if his overenunciation would ensure never having to say the word again. "And I know all that because I just texted her."

Hermione clapped a hand over her mouth. To hide hysterics or horror, she wasn't sure.

Ron gaped. "You…"

"Texted her, yes."

"Just now." Ron's face was slack with shock.

"Of course just now, when else would I have texted her? You only just began bemoaning your ineptitude at wooing a few moments ago."

Hermione leaped between them just as the color rushed to Ron's face. With her two hands pressing right front of his shoulders, she pushed Ron several feet back. "Ok, let's let the man-child be. He has reading homework to do."

"Hermione! You seriously_—_?" But what Ron was about to say to her was interrupted by a _ching! ching!_

Smirking, Sherlock withdrew the phone from his pocket and swiped the screen. He read the message. Immediately, his face took on a sullen scrunch.

Without giving any explanation, Sherlock held the phone out toward Ron, huffing loudly.

Hermione took it before Ron could, angling it so they both could read the messages. They started from the top.

_The red head is here seeking to gain advice on impressing you tomorrow night. -__S_

_He is? That's rather sweet. -M_

_It is? -S_

_Trying to make sure I have a nice time? Yes, that's very sweet. -M_

There were a few minutes before the next message.

_What's your favorite restaurant? -S_

_Zucca (plus of course Oliver's) -M_

_Flowers? -S_

_gerbena daisies -M_

_Romantic spots? -S_

_cemeteries -M_

_If he does not find that morbid there may be a chance for this man. Sex on first date? -S_

_NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS, SHERLOCK. -M_

Hermione chomped hard on her lips to keep from laughing. Sherlock had obviously reinterpreted that answer.

_You know I know this is your way of making it more likely for the date to go well, but don't just rattle these things off, you'll sound creepy. -M_

The next message came a few minutes after that.

_You already did, didn't you. -M_

_Goddamn it Sherlock, pass this phone over to Ron. -M_

Ron had gotten to the bottom just as the phone pinged with another message:

_Ron: sorry about my friend. Really looking forward to tomorrow night. Say hi to Hermione for me. -M_

Hermione read the final message scoffed. "What, I don't get my own hello?"

_Actually, probably Hermione's right there: Hi Hermione. -M_

Hermione grinned. Then, one last time, the phone pinged.

Sherlock grew suspicious when Ron looked up from the phone with a wide grin. Hermione passed it back, refusing to meet his eyes, and hurriedly returning to the kitchen. Eyebrows furrowed, Sherlock read the final message Molly had sent.

_btw Sherlock, whatever this is with Hermione, don't fuck it up. -M_

Even Ron's grin faltered when he saw the look on Sherlock's face. With a white-knuckled grip on the phone, he stormed to his bedroom and slammed the door.

Ron watched him leave. Of course, now that Sherlock's pervasive disdain was absent, so too was Ron's nervous inclination for stumbling idiocy. He narrowed his eyes, pensive. "He's almost like Snape but with excellent grooming. Haughty, arrogant, relationship-challenged."

Looking the same direction as Ron, Hermione pursed her lips. Her head tilted. "Actually, that's about as good as explanation as any other that I've heard of Sherlock Holmes."

* * *

><p>"I'm turning in."<p>

Sherlock had emerged from his room soon after Ron left, parking himself with Hermione's book and not moving for hours but to turn pages. When Hermione asked about dinner, he had ignored her.

He considered ignoring her again now. Did her going to bed really merit acknowledgement? He had ignored similar pronouncements from John countless times. Lack of notice toward his friend in this situation would be unremarkable.

And yet. Something did not sit right with behaving toward his friend Hermione the way he did with his friend John.

There still was a twinge of uncertainty in Sherlock when it came to the assignation of the word "friend" to whatever this was that he had with Hermione. The term lacked linguistic perfection.

Questions splintered out within his head. Why did the term lack linguistic perfection? Were they not friends? Was there something different about Hermione that made the word feel flat? Was there something different about him? He needed a thesaurus, a dictionary, a language other than English to find the right word he wanted. Why why why wasn't "friend" the exact word_—_

Realization slammed into Sherlock.

His eyes flew open. His fingers immediately twitching for something to do, something that would allow that the realization to recede, bury itself back down under confident disdain. But even a case that ranked as a '10' couldn't keep this new knowledge from rushing into every corner of his brain, seeping between neurons and sweeping among cranial lobes. No matter how he tried redirected his thoughts, it always reverted to this New Fundamental Understanding:

_"Friendship" was not the correct word when it came to Hermione. Not because it was too strong. But because it wasn't strong enough._

Desperate to regain control of his thoughts, Sherlock latched onto the one clear outlet he had available: responding to Hermione. Abandoning the tactic of ignoring her, Sherlock lowered his book and looked her in the eyes.

"I_—_" he said.

And then all the words in the world jumbled up in his throat until they formed a massive, impenetrable wall. Frankly, it was impressive Sherlock could still breath. Though, to be fair, it was taking concerted effort.

Hermione's face softened. She smiled. "I just said I was headed up to bed," she repeated, as if she understood that Sherlock's absence of speech was due to his previous focus elsewhere, not his ineptitude at that moment.

Sherlock was absurdly grateful for it. "Mm. Good night."

Her eyes crinkled more than her lips widened, in the way that Hermione did when she was content. "Good night."

With her bare foot squeaking just a bit on the hardwood floor, Hermione turned toward the doorway to the landing and her room above.

Sherlock suddenly jumped up off of the couch. The silk of his dressing gown fluttered in agitation before settling back into stasis. "Will you be alright?" he demanded.

Hermione paused, bewildered. She turned back, looking all around the room as if seeking the answer to a question that had never first been asked. "Why would I not be alright?"

Hermione's surprise surprised Sherlock. Did she not remember the previous night? "Nightmare," he said, as if it were obvious.

"Oh!" Hermione frowned in thought. Did that mean she really didn't recall? Sherlock thought. No, impossible. Her mind was engaged not in retrieval of past moments but in determining how to approach the one happening right now_—_

"What would you offer to do if I said 'no?'" Hermione suddenly asked.

She wasn't meaning to be coy, Though once the words were out of her mouth, she could see how it might be interpreted that way. According to the television, women in her position were meant to flirt, toy, engage, slowly rein in the man at hand until he was captured within her claws. Hermione, however, really was just wondering. What did Sherlock Holmes do to give comfort?

From the way he was shifting uncomfortably in his chair, Sherlock was as unenlightened as to that answer as she was.

Lips pulling down in self-admonishment, Hermione scolded herself. This was _Sherlock._ Of course he wasn't going to answer that question. She shook her head as if to clear away the thought. "I'm putting you on the spot. I shouldn't expect you to divine what I might like, I should just _tell_ you what I would like."

Sherlock, who had been frowning at the floor, raised his eyes to hers. His gaze was soft, a little apprehensive, significantly curious. It said, _Then tell me. What you would like?_

The air about them must have somehow thickened, for Hermione felt she had to suck in deeply to get a proper breath. Hoping the heaving was not apparent, she forced her voice to stay light. "I liked it last night when you slept with me."

"Slept next to you."

For a moment, Hermione stopped breathing all together.

"Merely acknowledging that the phrase 'slept with me' applies here in the literal sense and not in any euphemistic capacity," Sherlock said stiffly.

Color rose in Hermione's cheeks, and Sherlock wanted to hit himself in the forehead with his fist. In his knee-jerk attempt to make clear that their conversation wasn't about sex, he had quite efficiently made their conversation about sex.

Hermione, on the other hand, felt oddly serene. Apparently, there was a limited amount of nervousness that could exist in the flat, for as Sherlock's rose, hers dissipated. She had only a clear mind, a canyoning desire, and a man in front of her that might engage both.

"Sherlock."

He couldn't manage words. He could barely manage eye contact.

"Do you remember on the day I first met you, I said I would not seduce you and you said you would not seduce me?" Hermione asked.

What sort of nonsense question was that? "Did he remember?"_—of course he bloody remembered!_ Sherlock cleared his throat. "I believe what actually transpired was that you asked me if I wanted you to seduce me and I said no, and then if you thought I expected you to want me to seduce you, and I said no."

Hermione blinked. "Right. Yes. Accuracy is important in these things."

One corner of his mouth rose, mirroring hers.

The he swallowed. "Do you wish my answer had been… different?"

Were she The Woman, Hermione might have responded to the question with another question, ticking up the tension just a notch. She might have slowly dropped to the floor, slowly slithered toward him, slowly brushed a hand up his thigh. No words would further be said, but her eyes would speak volumes.

Hermione was not The Woman. She stood straight, hands folded in front of her. She looked calmly at him.

"Yes."

His heart was banging so hard he briefly wondered whether it was possible to get bruised ribs from within.

Other than taking an enormously deep breath, Hermione appeared perfectly composed. "Would you like to sleep with me tonight? And by that I mean not just next to me."

Sherlock swallowed audibly. His skin was aflame, as if every head in the world had suddenly swiveled toward him. Yet he looked just as steadily at her, (though perhaps not quite with such calm).

"Yes."

She stood and reached for his hand. He stood and took it. Fingers interlaced, he followed her up the stairs.


End file.
